Internet & Democracy Blog

Russian media this week has seen the emergence of a number of prominent stories, including themes related to Russia’s budget and banking system, political appointments, energy politics, Russia’s relations with neighboring countries, bills being debated by the Duma, and concerns over forest fires in the country’s far east.

Week of June 20 – June 26 (Red) Compared to June 13 – June 19 (Blue) for Five Major Russian Media Segments (TV, Pop Blogs, Random Blogs, Mainstream Media, Government):

New issues related to domestic politics and finance seem to dominate the overall week-to-week comparison cloud, indicated by the emergence of new high frequency words (in red) such as “банк” (bank), “бюджет” (budget), “газа” (gas), and “национальной” (national).  The frequent discussion of banks this week is in part accounted for by the catastrophic failure and subsequent bailout of the Bank of Moscow, Russia’s fifth largest bank.  In what is reputed to be “the largest bailout in modern Russian history,” the bank will receive as much as $14 billion in state-backed loans, with the state-run VTB Bank increasing its stake in the company to 75%.
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