Found this today.
Pre-war experimental evidence that Putin’s propaganda elicited strong support for military invasion among Russians
In February 2021, two Danish scholars conducted polling of Russians. In their study, a neighbouring country (Georgia or Latvia) engaged in “provocations,†ranging from calling Russia “weak,†denying Russian-speaking children a chance to study the Russian language, to the deployment of long-range missile systems. In some vignettes, Putin reacted by issuing a de-escalatory declaration while in others, Putin made an escalatory statement. Polling subjects were asked whether they supported Putin.
“Our results show that the Russian population’s preferences for using military force were highly manipulable. Even a relatively weak, one-time propaganda treatmentâ€â€particularly in the form of a vaguely described national security threat from a militarily inferior neighboring countryâ€â€was sufficient to significantly increase public support for war. After reading just one description of such an event, support for using military force against the neighboring country increased from an estimated 8 to 40% among the Russian population. If President Putin adds to this by delivering even a mildly formulated escalating statement, the number increases to 48% overall and to 59% among Putin supportersâ€â€with only 15% of Putin’s followers remaining opposed to war.â€Â
Worse, from the NATO perspective, it made little difference to Russians whether the offending country was not a NATO member (e.g. Georgia) or a NATO member (e.g. Latvia).
Since the Kremlin has (and is likely to maintain) near-complete control over the media environment inside Russia, this is a sobering study.
www.newsweek.com
