“Propagandise Not Advise!”: Media and Think Tanks of Italy and Germany on Russia’s 2024 Presidential Elections
https://doi.org/10.46272/2587-8476-2025-16-4-77-95
Abstract
The case study of media and analytical coverage of the 2024 presidential elections in Russia shows the approaches taken by the media and think tanks in Germany and Italy towards their public positioning and influence on various target audiences amid geopolitical confrontation and a changing world order. Media coverage of the Russian elections was focused mainly on the domestic audience and exhibited some features of propaganda, which aligns with the political context. In their turn, think tanks were in a more difficult situation. Having accepted the idea of the inevitable fragmentation of the world and facing an ideological vacuum, which arose amid worsening relations between Germany, Italy, the EU and the West on the one side and Russia on the other, think tanks had to make a choice between politicizing their activities under the influence of the context or maintaining a previous relatively moderate attitude. Both strategies give these organizations the opportunity to preserve or increase their influence – through the mechanisms of “hard” or “soft” power, as well as “ideological power” – with a certain positioning of think tanks in the information space of their states. However, the same strategies are associated with the inevitable loss of influence with a different approach of “think tanks” to shaping their public images. Some German think tanks have politicized their activities, which is explained by several factors. As a result, they were identified by the Russian authorities as “undesirable organizations,” which significantly limited their own “soft power” in relation to the Russian audience, effectively making it impossible to have any dialogue with the Russian side. At the same time, leading Italian and German think tanks which deal with foreign affairs still retain the opportunity to act in a neutral modality, preserving the possibility of constructive interaction with Russia’s expert community if a Russo–Western political dialogue begins.
Keywords
think tank,
soft power,
ideational power,
propaganda,
strategic communication,
framing,
critical discourse analysis,
politicization of expertise
Supporting agencies: The authors express their gratitude to PhD (Polit.) Alexander I. Nikitin for a fruitful exchange of opinion within joint research and Alena S. Sulakshina for her contributition to the database of think tank publications.
About the Authors
M. V. Vilisov
Institute of Scientific Information for Social Sciences of the Russian Academy f Sciences
Russian Federation
Competing Interests:
Russian Federation
Maxim V. Vilisov, PhD (Polit.), Leading Research Fellow, Center for Interdisciplinary Research
51-21, Nakhimovsky avenue, Moscow, 117418
Competing Interests:
No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.
L. I. Biktimerova
Russian Presidential Academy of National Economy and Public Administration
Russian Federation
Competing Interests:
Russian Federation
Liliia I. Biktimerova, Student, Faculty of International Relations and Business, Institute of Management
82-1, Vernadsky avenue, Moscow, 119571
Competing Interests:
No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.
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For citations:
Vilisov M.V., Biktimerova L.I. “Propagandise Not Advise!”: Media and Think Tanks of Italy and Germany on Russia’s 2024 Presidential Elections. Journal of International Analytics. 2025;16(4):77-95. (In Russ.) https://doi.org/10.46272/2587-8476-2025-16-4-77-95
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