ABSTRACT
This chapter analyzes the discourse on modernization in the Russian media from 2008 to 2014. When Dmitry Medvedev launched his programme with the key word “modernization” in September 2009, references to the word increased significantly in the Russian central press. The peak of discussion on modernization was 2010-2011 but in 2012, with the return of Vladimir Putin to the presidency, the discourse of modernization began to wane: in 2013 the number of references to modernization was again on the same level as in 2008. This chapter seeks to understand how the term “modernization” is understood in Russia and defined in the Russian media; what are the substantive elements linked with modernization; and what was the impact of Medvedev on the way the word “modernization” was used in the Russian media. Was modernization used differently in 2013 than it was in 2008? I argue that in Russian media discourse, “modernization” is usually understood in the technological sense, that modernization is usually not linked with Westernization, and that Medvedev’s campaign of modernization did change the way the word is used in Russian newspapers and in public discourse.
