Russian President Vladimir Putin called the collapse of the Soviet Union "the greatest geopolitical catastrophe of the century" and further stated that "Russia can and will independently determine for itself the time frame and conditions" of democratic reform (Rodriguez, 1). These statements clearly fall within the general context of what Terence Moran (183) described as propaganda, which may "be simple-minded in terms of content but never simple in terms of structure or impact on the receiver." This brief essay will consider Putin's statement in the light of comments on how language is used to create a sense of reality that does not necessarily match actual reality and how expert opinions and consistent frames are used to create a consistent version of reality.
In discussing such concerns, Todd Gitlin (3) stated that the process of "making meanings in the world of centralized commercial culture has become comparable to the process of making value in the world through labor." Meanings become essentially commoditized through the use of language, which sends clear signals through the use of referents and symbols of what is implicit in a statement or a movement. Messages that are processed, said Gitlin (5), become quite complex. Their superficial value may be quite different from their true value or meaning.
In Putin's statement, for example, the demise of the Soviet Union is characterized as the "greatest geopolitical collapse of the twentieth century." One suspects that if Putin did not read Newt Gingrich's (1รป2) 1996 GOPAC Memo on "Language as a Key mechanism of control," this was solely because Putin is also a master in the use of language to communicate subtle nuances via relatively straightforward language.
For example, Gingrich (2) makes reference to the use of the word "collapse" to indicate the use of a powerful term that can suggest contrast. The Soviet Union did not "fall," it rather more dramatically "collap...