Ways of Projecting the Image of the President of the Republic of Moldova in the International Press from the West and the East.

Comparative Study

Abstract

The study had as its general research objective the identification of ways to reflect
Moldovan reality and project the image of the President of the Republic of Moldova, Maia
Sandu, in Western and Eastern media. In order to achieve this goal, two news agencies
were selected – Agerpres from Romania and RIA Novosti from the Russian Federation.
The rationale for their selection is that both press institutions are official bodies and
develop their information policies in accordance with the state's official position.
Consequently, the way the media present internal and, especially external reality is
constantly shaped through the prism of state interests and correlates with the objectives
of its foreign policy. The main research methods were content analysis, which provided
the possibility of collecting quantitative-qualitative data on media products from and
about the Moldovan reality, put into the information circuit by each agency, and
comparative analysis, which allowed the interpretation of the data obtained and the
identification of similarities and dissimilarities in the activity of these two media
institutions. The research results have shown that the ways in which the reality and the
activity of the president of one state are reflected in the press of another state are, as a
rule, directly proportional to the nature of the bilateral relations between the respective
states. Media institutions, especially those owned by the state, operate on a specific
agenda they systematically promote, though this agenda is frequently influenced by the
political and economic interests of the country or the ruling elite