Sanctions and Russian gas, the propaganda that clogs up social networks

Two articles on sanctions and Russian gas, as many posts on Facebook, and more than seven hundred comments. They are all very similar to each other and are the photograph of a propaganda that has infiltrated social networks in a widespread manner. Reading them helps to understand how news is interpreted, with pre-packaged reactions that replicate the mechanism already tested with vaccines and the Covid pandemic, and the potential available to communication machines that, internationally and locally, have an interest in disseminate counter information. There are elements that recur, net of insults and simplifications, which allow us to trace the same lines that are found in the statements of the Russian exponents and in those, adapted to the needs of the Italian electoral campaign, of some political forces. The first is the delegitimization of the sources. To the usual denigration of journalists, enslaved, sold or just incapable, there is also the challenge of the origin of the news. In this case, a Yale University study on the effectiveness of sanctions against Russia. “The Yale school of management, the one that turns out the future white-collar workers who have been bleeding us for decades.” And also of those, in this case a Bocconi professor Carlo Alberto Carnevale Maffè, who cited the study. “Being a Bocconi professor is not a prestigious title, considering the various elements of the political class that he has produced”. They all end up in the same cauldron, with an evident inclination to lock them up in the enclosure of strong powers. “These people live inside the banks. They have to collaborate with big banks and multinationals. They don’t give a damn about the bill, they earn so much that € 1000 + or € 1000 – nothing changes.” Then, there is the challenge of the news. , to be refuted with the search for alternative sources. “Friends from Moscow say the opposite, and they are all anti Putin! … indeed they say that many food products have fallen in price …”. There is also an attempt to attribute responsibilities according to the tried and tested scheme that envisages indicating another enemy. “Russia is simply reacting to the sanctions that part of the EU has imposed, it does not take divine omniscience to understand it. Amsterdam is enriching itself in all this.” The reference is to speculations on the gas market, which is based in the Netherlands. More sophisticated analyzes associate the description of the enemy with the need to seek the truth that the media wants to hide. “The sanctions imposed on Russia are driving us to ruin, let’s abandon Ukraine to its false idea of ​​freedom, let Europe recognize that we don’t give a bat, let the actor get into some soap opera and that Biden no longer pisses off now that he has managed to raise the dollar, Italian relieved of this numbness that is bringing us only problems this is not solidarity that they solve their problems alone, winter is approaching “. The landing, and here the links with the electoral propaganda become more evident, it is the appeal to truly support the people and businesses. “Pandemic, lockdown solution, studies say it was a mistake … War, sanctions solution, studies will say it was a mistake … After this, however, Italy (people and businesses) will not get up again …. We need a solution immediately, families and businesses are at the limit and some have long since exceeded it “. Until the synthesis that links the elections, and the most familiar slogans such as “Italians first” to the theme of sanctions. “Luckily there are elections, if these still remained they risked big”. And, again: “Our people must think about the well-being of Italy, not that of Russia. What’s the point of trying to knock out a country (which hasn’t done anything to us) by dragging us into the abyss?”. (by Fabio Insenga)