Russia and Russians in 'The Los Angeles Times': From 'red menace' to 'new democratic partnership'

This is a quantitative research that compared how the newspaper Los Angeles Times portrayed Russia and Russians during the years of Reagan's and Clinton's administrations. The goal of the study was to find out if the coverage was consistent with the media framing theory. The results of the study support this theory, showing the clear presence of media frames. The main frame during the Reagan's years can be described as "antagonism between regular people and government." It included such themes as "odd government" and "normal ordinary people." The main themes during the Clinton years were "weak government," "struggling people," and "unstable country," creating a "third-world country" frame.;The results of the study show no clear correlation between the U.S. government foreign policy towards Russia and the newspaper coverage---the coverage of the Soviet Union in the 1980s was mostly neutral and mostly negative in the 1990s, despite the changes in foreign policy from antagonism to cooperation. The study also found that an average article about Russia in the Los Angeles Times during Clinton years was almost twice as long, with a bigger headline and more illustrations, although the total number of articles was twice as less than during Reagan years.