The Kremlin Within. Exploring the role of German politicians in the dissemination of Russian propagandistic narratives.

This thesis focuses on the domestication of international propagandistic narratives through domestic political actors. Taking the German far-right populist Alternative für Deutschland (AfD) as an example, this thesis analyzes how national actors utilize narratives of international propaganda for their own benefit. This is done in the context of the Russian invasion of Ukraine in February 2022. Since the beginning of the full-scale invasion, attempts by the Russian government to influence public opinion abroad have reached an unprecedented scale. Germany as one of the main financial and military supporters of Ukraine is one of the main targets of these influence operations. As demonstrated in this research, not only actors related to the Russian government contribute to the dissemination and thus the growing acceptance of propagandistic narratives in the German population. Rather, the narratives are utilized by German political actors and thus integrated into their own discourse. This phenomenon is approached taking the example of the AfD. This thesis analyses how the AfD interacts with these narratives for its own purpose. The research is based on domestication theory which assumes that international events, or as in this case, propagandistic narratives, need to be adjusted to the domestic context in order to be deciphered and comprehended by its target audience. Using Critical Discourse Analysis (CDA), the Facebook communication of the AfD within the first year of the Russian full-scale invasion (2022-2023) is analyzed. The aim is to demonstrate how narratives of Russian state propaganda are domesticated by the AfD.

Grantor dc:publisher

Helsingin yliopisto

Year dc:date.issued

2025

Author dc:creator

• Böing, Tabea

• Russia
• propaganda
• disinformation
• Alternative für Deutschland
• domestication

Statement dc:rights

• CC BY-NC-ND 4.0

Language dc:language.iso

eng

Handle dc:identifier.uri

http://hdl.handle.net/10138/603775

OAI identifier oai:identifier

oai:helda.helsinki.fi:10138/603775