Public Perception of International Crises: Identity, Ontological Security and Self-Affirmation

Speaker

Dr Dmitry Chernobrov is Lecturer in Media and International Politics at the University of Sheffield.

Abstract 

How do people make sense of distant but disturbing international events? Why are some representations more appealing than others? And most importantly, what do they mean for how societies imagine themselves? Going beyond conventional analysis of political perception and imagining at the level of accuracy, this talk will explore how self-conceptions are unconsciously, but centrally present in our judgments and representations of international crises. I will look for the drawing self behind its portraits of others - the inner motivations and needs of a subject that lead it to perceive events and their agents in a certain light. I will argue that public imagining of international crises is shaped by local anxieties, memories, insecurities, hopes, and above all - by the societal need for positive and continuous self-conceptions. The talk will provide evidence of self-informed and self-affirming perception in how the general public in Russia and the UK understood and imagined the Arab uprisings (also known as the Arab Spring) and will make an argument both about and beyond this particular case.

Biography  

Dr Dmitry Chernobrov is Lecturer in Media and International Politics at the University of Sheffield. His research focuses on public perception of international politics; societal self-idealisation; and the role of identity, anxiety and collective memory in political imagining. He is the author of Public Perception of International Crises (2019), and his research has appeared in Political Psychology, Politics, Digital Journalism, Ethnicities, and other top journals.