Historical Memory in the Media Discourse on the Special Military Operation

The study examines the issue of actualization of facts of historical memory as a form of media memory in modern media discourse, and clarifi es its place and role in propaganda, in this case understood as the dissemination of knowledge and the formation of a scientifi c worldview. Media memory is studied through its manifestations in the discourse (de facto offi cial media discourse) about the Special Military Operation on the example of the program “Vremya” (Channel 1 of television) for the fi rst 10 months of the SMO. The development of a model of media memory actualization in the context of news is both the goal of the research and determines its novelty. The methodology applied is complex – both primary and secondary information analysis methods are used. For this purpose, a content analysis of the “Vremya” program broadcasts is conducted, a focus group is organized, and an array of sociological data from open sources of VTsIOM is selected. As a result, the data was obtained, which allowed us to establish that the ways of addressing the facts of the Great Patriotic War memory in the studied narrative are identical to the known approaches to the organization of media propaganda, that the creation of historical memory is infl uenced by both objectively acting factors of the media society and subjective ones – the efforts of political actors to establish in the public consciousness a model of media memory that corresponds to the current political situation: the locus of history, to which the audience’s attention is directed, and a set of asserted goals are chosen. Thus, the events of the Special Military Operation are perceived through the prism of the heroic past, they acquire sacredness, and attempts to belittle them look like undermining the value system of society. The intension is reinforced by the optimism of the general mood of the programs, which tell about Russia’s successful overcoming of diffi culties in the economic and fi nancial spheres that arose under the infl uence of Western sanctions.