Propastop and Russian media: how reality can be altered
Mar 17, 2017
Estonian Life No. 11 2017
Propastop, a unit of the Estonian Defense League manned by volunteers, monitors Russian websites as well as mainstream media. Practically every day, one may find instances of distortion, misrepresentation, even on TV channels that claim to be 'independent', thus claiming creditbility. They are in fact under the strict control of the Kremlin.
Propastop has identified the usual 'myths' propagated. In November the Pervoi channel broadcast 'Time will tell', a discussion program and the Zvezda channel aired 'Osobaja statja', a panel including Estonian citizen Dmitri Linter, known for his pro-Moscow stance. (Zvezda is a Russian Defence Ministry televison channel, that has no conpunction in broadcasting the most outrageously distorted and fabricated information.)
The broadcasts contained several themes:
There had been no Soviet occupation of the Baltic states. The occupation has been false history as rewritten by those countries. The Red army liberated the Baltic states, which have always been part of Russia.
The concept of Russophobia is central in every second broadcast. The repetion is meant to fixate the viewers with the notion that Russophobia is rampant in the Baltic states. The hosts of the broadacasts continue to repeat it, even when some broadcast participants do not accept that Russophobia exists in the Baltics. (Read more: Estonian Life No. 11 2017)
