A survey finds that public perspectives in Russia are turning sharply anti-Western in matters of international relations. But what’s particularly interesting about this, is that such sentiments have grown fastest and strongest in Russia’s most cosmopolitan and urban regions, whereas a pro-Western orientation remains strongest in the Urals and rural Far East of all places.
It’s conceivable that this may be a corollary to a new kind of state-controlled media saturation, which would be more pronounced in the cities. That is, a media environment where there remain multiple competitive outlets for news and information, but all of which increasingly convey a consonant nationalist, anti-Western and xenophobic message in accord with government policy, amplified through volume.