Environmental conflict in the Russian press: public arenas, actors, and construction of problems

The paper deals with a presentation of a conflict over a project of paid highway Moscow-St. Petersburg in the Russian federal press. The conflict began as a local environmental clash, but later it became a federal issue to a large extent due to attention of the federal media. A theoretical basement of the paper is the constructionist approach in the sociology of social problems. Mass media greatly define our understanding of social problems. They are 'public arenas' of struggle among different groups over a definition of a certain issue as a problem situation, which requires or does not require a specific solution. The very fact of a depiction and interpretation of an actor of a conflict situation in mass media seriously influences at a success of this actor. On this premise, social movements that want to influence public opinion and political agenda significantly depends on the press. The purpose of the study was to investigate possibilities of different interpretations for disputable situations by opposite sides of the conflicts because of presentations of the situations in the 'public arena' of mass media. For our analysis of newspaper articles we employed diagnostic and prognostic frames. The diagnostic frame identifies problems, while the prognostic frame offers solutions of these problems. The analysis uncovered four different approaches towards depiction of a conflict: 1) mainly ignoring of the conflict; 2) a strong support of a debatable project and a negative attitude towards members of protest actions; 3) a concern with the project and a positive attitude towards members of protest actions; and 4) a neutral approach towards a description fo the conflict. The study showed that the environmental movement by dramatizing the situation could draw attention of the federal press towards the problems, which required a solution. At the same time, the analysis found that a political position of a periodical influence a character of its publications to such an extent that even dramatic events fall out of the journalists' field of vision. The case of the highway Moscow-St. Petersburg shows us that the Russia federal press is highly pluralistic discussing sharp social problems.

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