Russia and the Media: The Makings of a New Cold War.

• Author: McLaughlin, Greg

Greg McLaughlin starts his book, which investigates media in Russia, with his childhood memories. Caught up by the fear of nuclear attack and the destructive consequences of the Cold War, he describes how he obsessively turned to research in a quest for understanding. Over time, his fear evolved into an academic interest and passion. With a degree in Media Studies in hand, McLaughlin now commits himself to study the collaboration of mass reporting and propaganda in the Cold War era, a task made even more relevant by the fact that less than a decade after the end of the Cold War, Western mass media found a new enemy in the face of Russian President Vladimir Putin.

Right from the beginning, McLaughlin explains how forging an enemy image is essential when playing with people's minds. For instance, it helps the media to control and manipulate fear, mostly by exaggerating a threat. Crucially, it diminishes the human face of the danger, making it inhumane. Throughout Putin's Presidency, his image at the hands of the Western mass media has undergone a transformation, even though it has never been positive. Throughout the book, Greg McLaughlin represents various images of Vladimir Putin.

In the third chapter the author explains that after his first election in 2000, Putin was presented as a mysterious spy, from whom no one knew what to expect. But many would remark upon his fondness for monarchy, depicting him as 'the young king' (p. 31) who wants to destroy corrupt, evil individuals, but ends up a tyrant himself. McLaughlin notes that Putin's image started to shift from 2004 onwards. The image of the President came under criticism, as did his elections in 2008, 2012, and 2018. In general, Putin's democratic legitimacy was called into question from his second term onward.

The fourth chapter of the book describes three cases of murder and one attempted murder of opposition figures, all closely tied to the President. Two of them occurred in Moscow: opposition journalist Anna Politkovskaya and politician Boris Nemtsov were shot dead in 2006 and 2015, respectively. Both were known as harsh critics of the regime and of Putin directly; at the time of their murders, Politkovskaya was investigating killings that had occurred during the wars in Chechnya, and Nemtsov was opposing Russia's involvement in the Ukraine war. The other cases occurred in the UK: Alexander Litvinenko, an ex-FSB (Federal Security Service of the Russian Federation) officer, was...