Discussion
Extant research indicates that news repertoires are highly stable even during profound contextual change, showing that people most often maintain their news habits and only seldom change them (Andersen et al. 2021, P. 1).
Against this background, this article raises the question: How has Russia's full-scale invasion of Ukraine launched in February 2022 changed the news repertoires of Russian speakers living in Germany? Previous research found that using both Russian and German news media sources was common across the group prior to the war (in different combinations, though, see Ryzhova, 2024; Ryzhova & Toepfl, 2024). After the start of the war, in particular, in the Kremlin-controlled segment of the Russian language media landscape, it started to attack European countries, Germany included, even more aggressively in its propagandistic narratives (Litvinenko, 2023).
In order to answer our research question, we conducted 28 semi-structured interviews with Russian speakers of the first generation between September 2022 and May 2023. We found two major types of change that occurred with the news consumption patterns of this group. The first type of change, a short-term and a "shock-related" one was similar to the change described in previous research on news repertoire change during significant crises, such as COVID-19, and was expressed in a rapid increase in news consumption, with the following fatigue and reduction of news use either to pre-existing level, or even less or in some cases to a complete news avoidance. The second type of change was more long-term changes in individuals' news repertoires. Types of changes were, however, dependent on the audiences' pre-existing news repertoires. We observed changes only for 1) previously apolitical news users, some of whom got more engaged and interested in politics and used more news media, and also 2) the audiences who used both Kremlin-controlled and German media for intense comparisons. The participants with well-established news repertoires, such as those who mainly relied on pro-Kremlin sources, have only become more radicalized and exclusive in their news source choice, and their news repertoire became even more solidified and heavily reliant on authoritarian propaganda sources. These results show that while the short-term change was uniform across different types of audiences, the different types of more stable, long-term changes correlated with the pre-existing news consumption patterns.
Our research shows that political shock events can indeed result in long-term changes in users' news repertoires, in particular when the users feel a sense of belonging to the actors who caused the shock event or disruptive event. However, the type of changes is dependent on the users' prior news repertoires and identities.
