The phenomenon of post-truth in national media as a structural factor in russian-american relations

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Introduction

It is interesting to see how modern reality has completely twisted and thwarted the way important state actors and decision-makers treat information. While it became much more comfortable to prove something as true or false with the help of practically eternal digital records and new, faster, more precise information-sharing, the generally adopted, shared, and objective understanding of `truth' itself has been disseminated. Our comprehension of social and political context depends in large on the values we have and the truths we believe in, and the same can be said about the politicians who are in charge of formulating foreign policy concepts for their countries. Yet when it is written “truths” in plural, it is very much so with the intention to talk about how the modern society refuses to accept one single stance or point of view regarding any matter it might deem as worthy of attention. In recent years, there has been a rise in populist politicians across the globe. The political campaigns in different countries more than ever build on emotional messages and shared societal values: Fujimori, Trump, Zelenskiy, Le Pen - all of them have risen in popularity and power because they have cleverly appealed to emotions and attitudes of their supporters. The words “post-truth world” are now almost as frequent as the words “statehood”, “power”, and “interests” in the international discourse.

However, international politics is not the only field where post-truth has spread its roots. The ones who learned fast to utilize the same approach are national media outlets, each particular news outlet interested in securing its place as a daily-used and acknowledged source of information. Now, it is essential to note that the discussion of the national media as a part of the international relations science field should not be perceived as the discussion of the rising post-truth alternative media or a debate about the post-truth approach of modern journalism per se. While it is, indeed, a part of the possible outlook on the problem of post-truth in relation to media, one should not forget that the media, both traditional and alternative ones, are an important tool of international political games in a sense that it not only supplies the decision-makers with the actual public position on selected issues but also shapes the said public stance. Media coverage on international level is as vital since it can represent or evenshift the position of a country in the eyes of the global community. In this regard, the phenomenon of post-truth finding itself in national media is, at the very least, interesting if not crucial to the future talk about inter-state relations and the place of national and international media in these studies.

It does not come as a surprise in modern politics that media have a significant influence on the formulation of both domestic and foreign policy by decision-makers. The `CNN effect' and the `Al-Jazeere' effect have been discussed many times over since the 1990s, the decade of the true media empowerment, as one might call it. It has also been much speculated on the role of the post-truth values and identities in the media field in the last several years. However, there have not been many efforts in uniting the two concepts to see how post truth would play out on international arena. Post-truth, in general, is a concept of fair novelty in the international relations studies, and even more so it is new and not yet pried into for the foreign policy analytics. Yet, perhaps a bit suddenly, it came to the limelight in the period from 2016 onwards, after two major political events, both later called a major win of post-truth politics: the Brexit referendum in June 2016 and President Trump's victory in November of the same year. In fact, these two cases shook the word so much so that the Oxford Dictionary nominated the term to be the Word of the Year, defining it as “relating to or denoting circumstances in which objective facts are less influential in shaping public opinion than appeals to emotion and personal belief”.Indeed, to state that post-truth as a concept never existed before 2016 would be a dire exaggeration, yet it is valid to note that it was precisely these two cases that made the whole realm of political studies to finally turn to the undeniable fact that the post-truth media-field has changed modern policymaking forever.

This paper is aimed to look at the phenomenon of post-truth and its presence in national media of Russian Federation and the United States of America in the context of the inter-state relations of these two powerhouses to see how the post-truth media coverage affects their self-perception and the understanding of each other and whether it is truly used as a tool of soft power or a way of communication between the White House and the Kremlin in the recent years of tension and mutual animosity.By `national media' here one would understand the whole enormity of media channels that translate the official governmental position in any way possible - from direct translations of the high officials to `propaganda' materials aimed at own citizens, even though the United States, for instance, has no official `national newspapers'. Considering that self-perception and perception by others of own self are truly important for both the declining `world watchdog', the United States, and the `revisionist empire', the Russian Federation, it is only natural that their stances on local and international matters are often expressed through controlled or affiliated media channels and can be derived from them. It is then also plausible to say that the post-truth setting would be quite beneficial for both countries, and it is quite expected to find cases of what one can call “post-true” in their recent actions and positions regarding the contemporary global political situation.

At the same time, this study will help to understand whether post-truth is used as a tool by the US and Russia and whether it can be called a structural factor in their relations. Yet, to debunk the most vivid cases of “sweet lies” in international politics of the chosen countries is not the set goal of this work. On the contrary, it should be more interesting to see when the post-truth approach was effective and when not so to summarize in which cases the post-truth rhetoric may prove efficient as an argument or a counterargument in a heated debate between global international actors. Of course, the case studies for this research shall be taken from the most recent events which clashed the United States and the Russian Federation media outlets on the international field as representatives of two antagonizing powers and two often conflicting positions. It may be presupposed that post-truth has gradually evolved from being a simple tool to becoming one of the factors determining the inter-state relations altogether.

The theoretical basis of this research shall combine the constructivist international school of thought, media empowerment theory of foreign policy analysis, and philosophical, social, and political understandings of “post truth” as a separate concept. The constructivist school seems to be the most appropriate since it is focused on social concepts and socially constructed perceptions of states, which are crucial to the evaluation of the importance of post-truth in the context of Russian and US self-disposition and place on international arena. The media empowerment theory is relevant in the sense that this work shall discuss not the post-truth per se but the implications of the post-truth in national media for the international politics and the role of national media as the tool of information (or misinformation) and expression of own position on various matters. Of course, a complete discussion on the topic is impossible without a thorough examination of the very concept of post-truth from different perspectives, as well as historical development of the concept, especially considering that the nature of post-truth may be not as new as some scientists may pose it. This theoretical framework will help to limit the case studies so that the focus shall remain on the key questions of the research, without necessarily venturing into state identity, media untruthfulness or post-true world in general, as these themes, however interesting or entangling they may be, are unrelated to the main topic of this paper.

The main research questions, however, are quite tough to formulate due to the ambiguous nature of the topic studied and the fact that this work is more of a descriptive qualitative case study rather than a prying investigation with quantitative analysis. The key queries, if briefly stated, may be compiled the following way:

· Is there a visible predominant post-truth position of the chosen countries that determines their national media's reactions to major international developments?

· Are there differences in the way the national media of the US and Russia transmit post-truth as a tool of influence? Who is the main target of this tool?

· How effective are national media in shaping and changing the opinion of various international actors in favor of the state?

These three questions will help to focus on the main implications of post-truth for national media rhetoric and assess their effectiveness while taking into account the cultural and political context for the two selected countries, especially considering their disposition on the modern global arena. However, post-truth may turn out to be more commonly used in domestic rhetoric rather than on global level, at least in some cases. At the same time, each case can be compared to similar cases of post-truth news coverage in the selected countries to see whether there is an overall trend in the agenda-setting and agenda-broadcasting through the lens of post-true approach. To evaluate the effectiveness of this coverage, one has to take a look at the shifts in relationships and perceptions of the domestic and global societies before and after the selected case took place. Indeed, it may pose challenging to see what changes could be tied to the post-truth coverage and what can be attributed to other factors in general, but the general rule of thumb, in this case, would be to see whether the position of the national media desired by the country is successfully retranslated to the foreign media and the international players. It may be asserted that, by answering the four of the research questions above in analyzing each selected case, one can gain a much deeper understanding of the nature of post-truth in the modern world of international media, especially if we consider it to be an inescapable reality of the US-Russian relations in this day and age.

Now, bearing in mind the aim of this study, its theoretical framework, and the research questions formulated above, it becomes possible to sort out and write down the main initial assumption of this paper, which will guide this whole work until proved true or false, the thesis. Considering the fact that it is too early to rash to dramatical predictions on the outcomes of this work, the inceptive hypothesis would be the following: post-truth rhetoric has already become a major factor, rather than a tool, in the relations of the United States and the Russian Federation; the way the national media of these two countries react to global occurrences only confirms this assertion. Post-truth, in essence, helps to preserve status quo in the relations of the two antagonizing powers even when a critical point is reached, yet it is rather ineffective in changing the positions of the direct opponent or the other actors on the global arena since its purpose as a tool first and foremost was to secure and justify the actions of the country in question from its own perspective in the eyes of the international society. It appears that such a thesis would cover the key points of this study that can be either verified or disproved, and it represents the main aim and interest of this work sufficiently. With this statement marking the end of the introductory chapter, and with the clear understanding of the extent of this research, the discussion shall shift its focus on the theoretical framework and historical background of post-truth, media, and international politics, separately and all together.

1. Theoretical Background and The History of Post-Truth

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It should be noted that post-truth in general has many definitions and implications, which are not easy to distinguish or limit. There is no clear point in the history of international relations which marks the beginning of the post-truth era per se. Some even claim that this notion is nothing peculiar or never-seen-before, since misinformation (or, in very specific cases, blatant lie) was quite common in the international community even before the term “post-truth” was introduced; in fact, one may as well perceive it as a tool of foreign policymaking for quite a long time. It was also an inescapable factor of international relations, as rightfully noted by some particularly adamant neo-realists. Yet it would be strange to support this point of view in a work dedicated to seeing post-truth as a concept that has some fleur of novelty in the global politics field. On the contrary, to fully understand the research questions and the hypothesis presented above, it is necessary to cover the theoretical background pertaining to post-true thought and then discuss the known cases of falsehood in political history with regard to the modern understanding of the term “post-truth”.

What exactly is “post-truth” in international relations? It is a question complex and quite controversial. For once, what some call `post-true' is not in any way new or unheard of for the others (as shall be further discussed), it is no more than a wish to play with connotations of truths and lies for others, a desire to deconstruct knowledge and a discussion that entails. In general, the Cambridge Dictionary defines post-truth as “relating to a situation in which people are more likely to accept an argument based on their emotions and beliefs, rather than one based on facts”. Tallis and Michelsen (2018) distinguish three actual `responses' to post-truth: a response that claims that post-truth is yet another implication of the tough relations between politics and lies; a response that states that power of the international norms is more sturdy than political inconsistency or post-truth rhetoric and its threat to the modern global policymaking; the third response, however, underpins the importance of post-truth and the world created by the twisted post-true reality in the making. In the context of this particular work, the definition of post-truth is yet harder to formulate, as it would touch upon foreign policy, international communications, and international media network. Evidently, it would be better to begin with the theoretical side of the question, since it explains in much why `lies' from political actors, such as states, governments, people, are not essentially `post-true', and why post-truth itself, as it is understood now, is much more than a clever play of words and withholding of information.

Post-truth is first and foremost a philosophical idea that was brought up by the rise of post-modernism and critical theory. At the same time, the conflict between objective truth and subjective polarized truths is one of most pivotal collisions in the history of philosophy. For example, Plato's allegory of cave is one of the earliest discourses which brings to light the duality of knowledge and essence of objectivity. In the many years of the development of the Western philosophy, objective truth was regarded as the key point of discussion, which had to be reached - either by pure reason, as Hegel sought, or by the governance of moral law, as Kant argued for. However, with the rise of contemporary philosophical movement, the ideal objectivity of truth became if not rejected then surely doubted and even ostracized. The origins of post-truth thought can be seen in the works of such famous authors as Friedrich Nietzsche, who criticized the notion of `absolute truth', Max Weber, who proposed an interesting distinction between facts and values in his work, and Hannah Arendt, who, perhaps, was the first to explicitly talk about the distinction of deliberate lie and deliberate falsehood even before it earned the name “post-truth” and a significant place in the studies of international relations. This choice of these philosophers is by no means abstract or random: each of those authors marked a pivotal turn in the ideas about objective truth, facts and values, and each of them tied it in a specific way to the study of international relations. A journey through the history of pre-post-true philosophy and the development of post-true thought will help in underlining how and why the term itself, while not being completely novel, is a new factor to the inter-state relations overall.

Nietzschean critique of truth. While “post-truth” is a relatively new concept, its roots can be traced back to the philosophical works of Friedrich Nietzsche and his denouncement of truth as an objective notion that can be derived from reality. Even though he mostly attacks Christianity (and religiousness in general) in his texts, his writings possess unique actuality if one is to go through them from the perspective of the modern post-truth values and insights. Nietzsche claims that `truths' are inherently tied to beliefs of one or all. According to Gemes (1992), in Nietzschean views, “the notion of truth is used to escape responsibility for one's actions and beliefs and is employed as a means of coercing uniformity of belief” (p. 51). In other words, a specific view of a selected group of individuals on a certain issue formulates the `true' account of this issue for the said societal entity, not vice versa. In the same work, Gemes claims that Nietzsche, as a naturalist through and through, perceives beliefs as a completely normal activity of human beings, much like eating or sleeping, and calls it a tool “for manipulating the world to suit our interests” (1992, p. 52). One can surely immediately understand how important such a perception is in the context of studying the development of the post-truth concept in philosophy, particularly, in political philosophy. Indeed, Nietzsche can be very well called one of the first proponents of post-truth ever, since he was among the first philosophers to note the illusory objectivity of `truth' and `untruth' and tie is to the interests of the one who spreads these truths and feeds them to the masses.

Nietzsche also discusses the `unconditionality' and `absolutism' of truth, which, in turn, leads to the understanding of how objective events or facts can be interpreted into different or, in some cases, even opposing truths. He very much despises the concept of one idea acceptable for specific individuals being able to fit all, and he even notes that one specific truth may become inacceptable for an individual over time even if he or she earnestly supported it before (Gemes, 1992). The absolute truth for Nietzsche is not only despicable but also harmful, as `will to truth', i.e., the desire to hold on to that which we find to be true, hinders further cultural evolution and rejects the possibility of coexistence of differing approaches to same issues, which is of great importance in any metaphysical discourse (Heit, 2018). It is necessary for human beings to acknowledge their inability to grasp universal knowledge and their inherent ignorance to be able to overcome them. In this regard, Nietzsche holds both “those who eagerly adopt any conspiracy-theory that suits their prejudices” and “those who confuse their justified beliefs with absolute truths” equally dangerous and responsible, as “they deny the possibility of justified or promising different views. Both cannot cope with the existential lack of absolutes and clear horizons” (Heit, 2018, 58-59). In essence, Nietzsche vehemently opposes the possibility and acknowledgment of any `absolute' truth from several perspectives; not only does he underline the normality of the process of change in truth from person to person and over time (or, to be precise, the perception of truth), he also points at the harm done by such `universal' truths, condemning the lack of growth possible with diverging views, diverging `truths'. This interesting view will be particularly relevant later in this discussion, when it will cover the history of truths and values in communication messages of both the United States and the Russian Federation, which, to no surprise, shifted on many occasions with the changes in governments and political courses of these countries.

Weberian difference between facts and values.Max Weber is another widely cited philosopher and author when it comes to the history of the pre-post-truth thought. In this context, the transcript of his “Science as Vocation” lecture is held in high regard and frequently revisited in attempts to tie Weberian thoughts to the modern developments in sociology and politics. In the said lecture, Weber tries to connect the objective and factual faces of science-making with his approach to political and social sciences to distinguish between what he calls `facts' and `values'. While Weber does not reject the existence of positive and objective truth per se, he advocates that it is only possible as long as this truth is not tainted by the ideologies and beliefs of the person proposing it. Weber says: “I am ready to prove from the works of our historians that whenever the man of science introduces his personal value judgment, a full understanding of the facts ceases” (as cited in Gerth and Mills, 1946, p. 146). He believes that facts end with our ability to discern, measure, and prove them via scientific methods. For him, aside from strictly limited scientific questions which can be answered with certainty (and the answer to which, in this context, can be called the absolute, objective truth), there are also certain presuppositions in any scientific field, be it natural sciences such as physics or chemistry or sociology and politics, that “cannot be proved by scientific means. [they] can only be interpreted with reference to [their] ultimate meaning, which we must reject or accept according to our ultimate position towards life” (as cited in Gerth and Mills, 1946, p. 143). Such presuppositions will not (and could not) have a fact for an answer, as they shall be answered differently by varying parties, and Weber exemplifies this statement with the variety of such presuppositions from numerous scientific spheres, from medicine to politics. In regard to politics, Weber is especially resolute in his argument; “to take a practical political stand is one thing, and to analyze political structures and party positions is another”, he claims (as cited in Gerth and Mills, 1946, p. 145). It is not hard to see why this dimension of conflict of facts (represented by science) and values is especially important in the further discussion of post-truth disposition of modern national media outlets. After all, the post-truth era is characterized in part by the sipping of the values and dispositions of the people behind the information-spreading into the news agenda, either subconsciously or intentionally.

Yet there is another perspective on Weberian thought that relates it closely to post-truth, focused on the Weber's causality models. Konstantin Gaaze (2018) focuses on a more sociological approach to post-truth and shows how the retroactive causality in seemingly logical causal chains may lead to the creation and spread of post-truth. He calls post-truth “a fight for authority between equal explanatory models … it requires both the ability to destroy causal chains of opponents and to build new ones” (Gaaze, 2019, p. 42). It is a clever and a bit alarming outlook on post-truth, that allows for a new view on the creation and the spread of information in post-true circumstances, which also sheds a glimpse on how one can view post-truth as a factor of politics rather than merely a tool used by domestic and international actors alike. Gaaze (2019) examines Weberian deconstruction of the chain of events and the resulting “adequate causality” and “chance (fortuitous) causality” models, noting how Weber gave birth to two causality misinterpretations that can be applied to modern post-truth studies (albeit Weber himself did not elaborate on the both in his later works and never explicitly discussed him thereafter): “the first [misinterpretation] implies that logical possibility as a non-contradiction allows to link several cause-and-effect chains into one; the second one has to do with the effect of the “plurality of causes” that allows the researcher to edit the history over and over again” (p. 52). Gaaze (2019) feels that these techniques of causal imputation are used in modern post-truth era successfully, and he even names `Pizzagate' one of the many examples of these causality models at work. It is practically impossible to disagree with him on that matter, and, to take the matter farther, this distinction and causality explanation seems to be a fine addition to the theoretical basis of this particular research, for it occasionally proves burdensome to spot (and even more arduous to explain) the element of post-truth in national media rhetoric.

Arendt on lies and falsehoods. Hannah Arendt was unequivocally the first to transfer the debate of post-truth from the perspective of not only the `truth-untruth' dichotomy but also the `lies-falsehoods' dichotomy, which she elaborated in her essays on politics, namely, “Truth and Politics” (1967) and “Lying in Politics” (1971). Both essays can be a philosophical discourse in as much as they can be called a study in politics, so Arendt's works are also unique in the sense that they in part precede the recognition of post-truth as a tool and a factor by modern politicians and international relations researchers. She does a marvelous job of collecting the different accounts on truth and lies throughout history, while at the same time building a compelling argument to prove that “true/false” dichotomy is, in fact, not so black-and-white as some claim it to be. In a sense, Hannah Arendt marks with her works the beginning of what we know as a post-true world in our modern understanding of the term, which is why, without any doubt, her works should be discussed prior to the discussion relating to the chosen case studies.

In the first essay, “Truth and Politics” (1967), Hannah Arendt draws a line between rational and factual truth to demonstrate what she calls the ultimate conflict between politics and truth. She begins developing her idea by turning to the history of morality and philosophy and juxtaposing what she calls a `philosopher's truth' with the `common opinion'. The truth in this sense is tightly related to the Plato's allegory-like outlook on knowledge, and there is not much room for discussion here, yet the `opinion' in this distinction is a concept that is much harder to grasp. She makes a somewhat unsatisfying conclusion before moving on with her argument: “it may be in the nature of the political realm to be at war with truth in all its forms” (Arendt, 1967, p. 7). Truth, in Arendt's terms, is a despot, which is non-yieldable to any government, hence the clash for authority, as she puts it. However, at that point it is not exactly clear which truth from her own distinctions she takes in: she supposedly talks more about rational truth (the example of two plus two making four) rather than factual truth; at the same time, when she transfers the attention of her monologue over to factual truth, she makes her point ever clearer further in text by explaining not only how its nature opposes the desire of politics to domineer but also how it is undermined by the facts being no more `cemented' than opinions and being highly dependent on witness accounts and records, which, of course, may be destroyed, twisted, and manipulated with ease. Factual truth in this piece is defined as a truth that does not allow for verification which would be based upon self-evident morals or reality manifestation; in this context, the argument about truths and lies being mixed together, as both may and should be told with courage and insistency, becomes much more dignified and understandable, especially in the context of global politics.

At the same time, in this work, Hannah Arendt makes a clever yet disturbing claim trying to distinguish plain lies (`traditional', she calls them) from what we now deem to be a post-true kind of lie (the `deliberate falsehood' mentioned above) and ventures onto the territory of mass manipulations - the phenomenon that would be much, much more relevant and much more discussed some fifty years after the article itself was published. In attempts to clearly define the issue, Arendt suggests, that a traditional lie “concerned only particulars and was never meant to deceive literally everybody; it was directed at the enemy and was meant to deceive only him” (Arendt, 1967, p. 13). In comparison, a deliberate falsehood is changing the context in which it is delivered and in which it shall exist as a historical precedent; in the same line, it is also a falsehood aimed not at one's enemies but rather at the whole mass of actors present on the scene - in essence, the one who deceives is also the one deceiving him- or herself (Arendt, 1967, p.14). Both dimensions of post-truth in Arendt's view are distressing to say the least, for the change of context on a global level to fir in the piling falsehoods may unequivocally lead to a necessary re-making of the reality the international actors exist in, and the self-misleading on a level of a nation (not mentioning the transnational one) would be endangering to the actual truth and the truthtellers, should there be come brave enough to carry on that factual truth not corresponding to the adopted truths. And it is much true for democratic and non-democratic states alike, since they both work more on consensus than on the dictatorship of absolute, factual or rational notwithstanding, truth, which, as have been previously formulated, is in direct opposition to any political governance.

“Lying in Politics”, wrote by Hannah Arendt and published in 1971, is focused less on the philosophical nature of truths, lies, and their in-betweens; instead, it is a part-reflection, part-case study built upon the infamous Pentagon Papers leaked to The New York Times in 1971, which contained a range of top-secret materials on the Vietnam War and the US presence in Vietnam for almost a decade, and split into aspects of deception, self-deception, image making, ideologizing, and defactualization. However, Arendt does not perceive the documents as a juicy leak that she could leech off: what she sees in these documents is the reflection of the “infrastructure of nearly a decade of United States foreign and domestic policy”, pitched against one of the most formidable failures of the US foreign policy in history (Arendt, 1971, p. 1). In this work, she reiterates her argument of deliberate falsehoods based on factual truths, making it fiercer; this time, however, she has no double takes, as she directly recognizes the political necessity for lie. Now, as to why the Pentagon Papers are of notion in the discussion of post-truth, Arendt (1971, p. 4-5) writes: “concealment, falsehood, and the role of the deliberate lie became the chief issues of the Pentagon Papers rather than illusion, error, miscalculation”. In fact, even though the information provided by the intelligence was as accurate and truthful as it only could have been, and it was evidently more than enough to rethink American approach to conquering Vietnam, it was twisted beyond recognition by the policy makers.

What strikes Arendt, however, is that these `modifications' of the objective reality, these deliberate falsehoods were “chiefly if not exclusively destined for domestic consumption, for propaganda at home and especially for the purpose of deceiving Congress” (1971, p. 5), and the decisions which followed suit were most probably recognized as in many instances impossible or irrational to carry out. Yet all of them were made in full consciousness (after all, the whole of the US government and militia not being in their sound minds during all the years of warring on the Vietnamese soil would be quite improbable) in an attempt to keep up with the face of the American government before its citizens and the role of the United States on the global arena. Hence, these impossible decisions led to unattainable goals, which shifted further and further down the line, as Arendt notes, the more evidently fictious they became. She stresses this degradation on how the key aim of the USA in the war with Vietnam changed slowly but steadily from the the `clear-cut victory' envisioned as desired in the first months to the attempt to prevent the victory of the opponent after 1965, and, then, to the desperate strife to “avoid humiliating defeat”; even though it may seem absurd, none of them cancelled the other, spiced with the rhetoric of demonstrating American trustworthiness and power, as well as liberal (western) solidarity (Arendt, 1971, p. 5). At some point, it seems, that the US government started to convince itself of the falsehoods to persuade the nation and then the world itself of its might and reliability, despite the fact that no one, not even the high office, truly believed in these sweet-toothed lies. As Hannah Arendt's words, it is the tight connection between deception (albeit not very successful one in this case) and self-deception, in large eased by the dichotomy of bureaucracy and public opinion, lined up with particular set goals, bordering on constructivist concepts of recognition and perceptions, leads to the dynamic acid mixture of “arrogance of power” (“the pursuit of a mere image of omnipotence” without the real concern for limited and attainable resources) with the “arrogance of the mind” (Arendt, 1971, p. 12), which is, to be brief, one of the most sufficient and brilliant philosophic descriptions of post-truth in the context of statehood up to this date.

Post-truth, as was previously mentioned, is a term and a concept complex enough to be analyzed from multiple perspectives. In a sense, the `political' distinction of the term can be somewhat different from the mass media perspective, at least in the points of focus. To be able to sufficiently discuss the post-truth as a structural phenomenon, unsurprisingly, one has to first introduce the plane in which this discussion can be held: after all, many international relations theories talk about structures and structural factors of the global society, yet the one that would introduce the idea of post-truth as a solid part of modern international affairs would probably be the constructivist school. At the same time, since this work emphasizes the role of media in the spread and endorsement of post-truth in the political world, it is vital to talk about the theories that would cover the mass media influence on the global policymaking in full. Media empowerment theory, for one, could be a great example of how modern international relations scientists look at the mass media influence over decision-makers. This theory delegates part of the authority usually attributed to the high office to the mass media outlets, claiming them to be actors in as much as tools of communication for those in the government, which is also an interesting perspective to take, albeit it somewhat undermines the initial assumptions of this thesis by noting the apparent freedom (translating to the freedom of mistake as well) of the news suppliers, who can spread the post-truth rhetoric by their own will rather than by the will of the state; more on this shall be said later in the chapter. By combining these two theories and intertwining their outlooks on the modern global politics, one should have the instruments necessary to create a more profound understanding of the many possible views on post-truth in order to be able to successfully apply them to the study of the Russian-American relations from this post-true perspective and the role national media play in each particular case.

The constructivist school. The constructivist school seems to be the most appropriate since it is focused on social concepts and socially constructed perceptions of states, which are crucial to the evaluation of the importance of post-truth in the context of Russian and US self-disposition and place on international arena. What is more, the concepts of “factors” and “tools” in international relations for this research paper shall be built upon the constructivist understandings of these terms, since post-truth as both a factor and a tool is almost completely based on self-perceptions and identities. The discourse of post-truth also fits well with the constructivist belief that agency and structure are equally important and mutually constitute each other (Hopf, 1998).Since this work shall use the said notions in great number, writing down the definitions that shall be used is only common sense.

In case with constructivism, it would be natural to first refer to the `founding father' of this relatively new school of international relations thought, Alexander Wendt. Albeit he is not the one who truly coined the term and introduced the theory, his 1992 phenomenal article “Anarchy Is What the States Make of It” is still considered as the work that in much determined the development of constructivism for the next decades. For example, for the sake of further discussion, we should adopt Wendt's definition of the structure and identity through collective meaning: “people act toward objects, including other actors, on the basis of the meanings that the objects have for them… It is collective meanings that constitute the structures which organize our actions. Actors acquire identities--relatively stable, role-specific understandings and expectations about self--by participating in such collective meanings” (1992, p. 397). In other words, by Wendt's (that is, constructivist) perspective, the structure of the interstate relations is formed by the essence of these relations. Enemies react to each other in a way different from that they would react should they interact with their friends. The roles of `enemy' or `friend' in this case are purely subjective and assigned by the actors themselves; however, depending on these subjective perceptions, the whole structure of the bilateral and multilateral relations changes. The notions of `identity' and `meaning' are tightly knit, since the identity of the state is attributed to it based on its own understanding of its role and the understandings of other actors who react to this state. The meaning the state has for other states gives birth to the identity it assumes, and these identities can be quite numerous, since one state can possess more than one meaning for different countries (and, to be even more fair, it can possess multiple meanings to the same country - this point shall be discussed further, once our attention shifts to the identities of Russian Federation and the United States). Identity, as the same time, is “an inherently social definition of the actor grounded in the theories which actors collectively hold about themselves and one another and which constitute the structure of the social world” (Wendt, 1992, p. 398); meaning that identity, born from meanings, in turn creates the structure of the international relations. Constructivist interpretation of the structure of the global politics is quite unstable in this sense, as the meanings and identities are not set in stone - they may change, and they do change.

However, in the modern reality such a supposition is all the more relevant, especially if we turn to the concept of interests binding it together, and to the resulting definition of structure in the interstate relations as constituted of identities and interests. Interests are, too, born of identities taken by the states, as well as from the situational contexts. Much like the people who comprise the government of a country, the states themselves have interests that are case-related. As Wendt (1992) formulates it, the states “define their interests in the process of defining situations” (p. 398);they define the situations in part based on the identities already attributed to them (either by themselves or by the national community) and on the experiences connected with similar events. In the situation where there is little to no similar experiences, the actors shall first define the meaning proprius of the case before them and only then proceed to formulate the interests they may have. The inability of an actor to self-determine the roles it should have makes defining the identities and interests in particular situationmuch more difficult and may eventually lead to the `identity confusion', disrupting the structure of the relations overall. Wendt uses the bilateral communication of the post-Cold War United States and Russian Federation as an example, claiming that, without the identities attributed to them by the long Cold War animosity and hostility, these states seem to be unsure of what their "interests" towards each other should be. His prediction turned out to be true - the whole 90's decade was quite controversial for both the United States, trying to instill the adopted identity of the winner of the Cold War and the world leader in the global community, and the Russian Federation, which was torn between a possible liberal `turn for the West' and the failing legacy of the former super-power. In fact, the whole modern structure of Russian-American relations can be very well explained by the constructivist approach, and the importance of post-truth as one of the factors is all the more apparent in such a perspective.

It is worth mentioning here that post-truth is very tightly related to the social constructivism, a sociological theory in much close to its political constructivist sibling, which claims that human knowledge and development is socially situated and constructed through our interaction with others. Fischer (2019), for instance, proposes to view the apparent cases of `alternative factualization' from the perspective of social constructivism since it allows one to note the political implications of denial of truth by highlighting the role of discourse and socio-cultural context. The author, talking about the denial of facts and, in a broader scope, science by the general public and certain politicians (namely, President Trump), proposes to take into account the emotional response the people may have to the facts in discussion. While discussing post-truth, either in social or in political sense, one shall inevitably have to consider emotional discourse as part of the cultural and social legacy, as no action, political included, is separable from these contexts. In a certain way, such a sociological stance simply has to be represented in this work, for the national media may often be the ones representing and even forming the emotional context of any particular event or fact that requires the decision-makers' attention. Notably, political constructivism is a theory which emphasizes the power of discourse, ideas, ideology, and etc.; a power, regarded by other schools as `unrealistic' and of less importance than hard power (Hopf, 1998). Coupled with its endorsement of constant political change, constructivism is a school of international relations perhaps best equipped with the potential to study post-truth in all of its glory, especially if we relate it to the relations between two very specific states that base their politics in much on their, often self-imposed, identities - the United States and the Russian Federation.

The media empowerment theory. The role of media in policymaking has been discussed much in the last several decades, so much so that there is a theory of media empowerment, which asserts that the mass media outlets have become an entity and a power of their own, able to either promote or hinder actions taken by the government or any given politician in particular. Coherently, the media channels serve as the suppliers of information not only to the public but also to the high office, and the national media, in particular, can become the megaphone through which the official position of a state government is translated. As previously noted, this work shall discuss not the post-truth per se but the implications of the post-truth in national media for the international politics and the role of national media as the tool of information (or misinformation) and expression of own position on various matters.

A brief outline of the concepts of media empowerment is well-presented in the article by Filiz Coban (2016), who shows an ongoing fight for media hegemony between CNN, Al-Jazeere, RT, and CCTV. In his work one is able to take a look at a whole another dimension of the soft power outlets. Coban suggests that modern supply of information, being as accessible and wide as it is within global media, has triggered full-fledged information warfare on the global scale among the states and forever has altered the power play in the international politics. Unfortunately, modern International Relations studies, which, as the author believes, are mostly influenced by the realist movements, significantly undermine the role of media and communication. Coban (2016) suggests several ways in which modern media have helped to construct the modern global politics: first, modern media help to create the picture of the world to the people and separate `in-group' and `out-group' activities, establishing the overall identity and sense of belonging, as well as highlighting the positions of others, which, in turn, serve as the stepping stones in determining friends and enemies of states; second, “local, national and international news agencies circulate information and images between countries and form relationships between people from the local level to the international level” (p.47); third, the media are increasingly successful in attracting their audiences to global politics and decision-making processes, and they are as effective in mobilizing the public to pressure the politicians and favor certain outcomes (best known as the abovementioned CNN effect). The three points outline well how the media empowerment theory contributes to the study of the global politics.

The CNN and Al-Jazeere effects are indeed a matter of importance in discussion of media influence, since they explain the most evident and yet the most peculiar aspect of media soft power. Livingston, for instance, in his seminal work “Clarifying the CNN effect” (1997),denotes multiple variations of the CNN effect that affect statehood each in their own manner. According to his understanding of the concept, a media outlet can serve as an accelerant to the policies that the high office strives to implement by promoting the certain decision in the public, as an impediment by reducing morale or threatening operational security, or as an agenda setting agent, i.e. the media outlets can rearrange the priorities of the global politics as they see fit. “Today, the instantaneous transmission of diplomatic signals via global media is routine”, writes Livingston, describing the example of the Cold War flawed communication between Moscow and Washington, D.C. and the rise of radio news in its stead in the days of the Cuban missile crisis, when the world was on the brink of destruction, to prove his words (Livingston, 1997, p. 4). Little did he know of how prophetic his words would be some two decades after. Though he actually gives little credit to the “CNN effect” per se, noting how it is more dependent on the types of the policies the media have to react to, and how the theorists discussing the said phenomenon have to `refine the debate' before progressing any further. While not many agree with Livingston at some points, including Coban himself, his outline of the CNN effect itself is considered to be a major referral point. It is furthered by the so-called “Al-Jazeere” effect, which, as Coban (2016) explains it, is but a new face of media's influence over global politics, which has taken the informational warfare to new heights, and Al-Jazeere, CCTV, and RT are fine examples of such challenges to the previously domineering global media coverage of CNN.

Reconciling the two approaches. The two theories speak for themselves, but they do work even better when applied to the topic in question together. The constructivist school is a young theory focused primarily on the identities of the states and seeks to explain their behavior on the international arena through self-consciousness and the resulting formulation of national interests. Media empowerment theory, at the same time, is also a relatively new theory in international relations studies, which in part describes how national media participate in the process of identity formulation of the states by manipulating the minds of the public (and, if one is to continue this argument, the minds of the politicians as well to some extent) and serving as a channel for the national leaders to promote their stances and to translate their positions to the other countries. Evidently enough, discussing the role of post-truth as a factor in bilateral relations requires a perspective that stresses both the importance of identity in the process of international decision-making and the undeniable influence of media outlets on the formulation of the said identity, inward and outward alike, and the creation of post-truth messages.