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INTRODUCTION The 1990s brought a new international relations perspective to Russia and the former Soviet region. The New Political Thinking associated with Soviet reformer Michael Gorbachev and his reform-minded advisors--i.e., [...]

In response to recent changes in the international system, several schools of thought within the expert community have competed for influence inside Russia. Some of them push toward the establishment of a new, concert-based global power, while others warn that global instability is the new normal or doubt that the world has moved past the West-centered system. The Kremlin remains instinctively revisionist yet is also wary of any sharp and potentially disruptive moves. The global transition and Russia's great power mentality push Moscow toward revisionism, while domestic stagnation and cautious reactions from non-Western powers encourage pragmatism in foreign policy. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article combines quantitative and textual analysis of editorials in leading American newspapers devoted to Russia's internal politics from 2008 to 2014. Despite rapprochement under President Dmitry Medvedev, the media image of Russia has been overwhelmingly negative since 2008. Negative media editorial opinions of Russia reflect fears of autocratic political systems that are represented as a dangerous mirror image of the American system. To maintain this binary, aspects of Russian politics that did not fit into the neo-Soviet autocracy narrative were ignored. An original contribution of the article is its identification of key frames used by leading American media outlets to construct a narrative about contemporary Russia as a neo-Soviet autocracy. It demonstrates that this narrative is instrumental in confirming domestic perceptions of American national identity that emphasize its association with freedom at home and leadership of the 'free world' abroad. As such, these findings are significant for reaffirming the importance of media framings, associated narratives, and control over them to global governance and soft power. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]