Research Report　The Present Position of Propaganda

One Year since the Russian Invasion of Ukraine

Abstract

On February 24th, 2022, Russia started the military invasion of Ukraine, calling it a “special military operation.” The government’s propaganda has been intensified since then, with Russian state media extensively reporting the news in accordance with the intentions of the regime and with the government exercising the control over speech. Propaganda, however, is not a specialty unique to Russia. It has been widely used by various countries in past wars and conflicts. This paper summarizes the transition of propaganda in line with the changes in the latest media of each time period, tracing back the history from the First World War, when large-scale propaganda is said to have started, to the invasion of Ukraine that is occurring in this age of social media. The author also overviews the countermeasures against the Russian propaganda implemented by Western countries and the European Union. Furthermore, focusing on one of the previous studies on propaganda, the paper discusses why the Western media intensively report the situation in Ukraine while rarely covering the ravage of war in Myanmar, from the viewpoint of “worthy victims” and “unworthy victims” expounded by Edward S. Herman and Noam Chomsky along with their “propaganda model.”