(Person) Percentage - Sabanci University Research Database

The Asian Media & Mass Communication Conference 2010 Osaka, Japan
“ [Joe Biden] He noted the largess of Americans- “they said, ‘It’s OK., take my money, raise my taxes’” –
in pledging $1 billion in aid to Georgia after the war. Only five million people live in Georgia, making it
one of the highest per capita recipients of American aid in the world.” (NY Times, July 24, 2009)
“Mr. Biden intends to make it clear on this trip that the United States will not abandon its allies in
deference to Russia, said one of his senior advisers. ‘We will continue to reject the notion of spheres of
influence,’ Antony J. Blinken, Mr. Biden’s national security adviser, said in a conference call with
reporters last week. ‘We will continue to stand by the principle that sovereign democracies have the right to
make their own decisions and choose their own partnerships and alliances.” (NY Times, July 21, 2009)
“His [Joe Biden’s] visit after President Obama’s meeting with the Russian president, Dmitri A. Medvedev,
in Moscow, is aimed at reassuring the countries that American support will remain despite an
improvement in Russian relations.” (NY Times, July 21, 2009)
It was also interesting how the media referred to breakaway regions of Georgia, South Ossetia
and Abkhazia, legally are recognized as territories of sovereign Georgia. In media outlets we
chiefly encountered two terms enclaves (34) and moderately used separatist (8). It should be
noted that these were the terms that the English language media used with regard to autonomous
republics in 2006-2007 as well. In this sense, the war has not affected the legal understanding
and the attitude of respect towards the territorial integrity of the Georgian state. Going back to
2006 the media employed the following terms to describe the South Ossetia and Abkhazia:
enclave, statelet, rebel region, pro-Russian separatist regions. In description of Georgia the
western media also used terms little, small, tiny (in 2006-2007).
“Moscow has also imposed economic sanctions on tiny Georgia.” (Reuters, November 27, 2006)
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