A Critique of Political Communication Theory in Assessing the Concept of the Russian Threat in Lithuanian Media

Abstract

Is Russia a threat to Lithuania and other countries in the region? Today, the answer to this question would more often be affirmative: Russia’s endless cruel war against Ukraine and Russian political statements make it clear that Russia is determined to regain the territories it considers like ‘its own, but currently lost’. However, 25 years ago, most politicians and journalists would have answered that the Russian threat does not exist, although Lithuania’s historical experience during the Soviet occupation and in the course of liberation from it has shown that the imperialist sentiments of Russia have not disappeared, and that agreements with Russia can change in no time. For example, in a television debate show, three participants out of four deny the Russian threat while only one suggests the existence of this threat. Why? Political communication theories can hardly help us find an accurate and precise answer, since research focuses on democracy as an unchanging constant, election campaigns, the development of media technologies, or globalization. It becomes clear that a new approach to the sources of political communication can provide a consistent answer: an assessment of the historical connections between the media and politicians and their approximation to the present, as well as an understanding of the systematic misleading imitation of democracy, as well as other important factors related to the interests and choices of actors. This article presents a fundamental critique of theoretical statements of political communication. This critique excludes the essential factors complicating the perception of the Russian threat. A semiotic approach with these factors forms a complex model which reflects the causality of the attitude of political communication actors towards Russia as a threat.