A fictional report about a terrorist attack in Tskhinvali shown March 13 at prime time on Imedi, a major Georgian television channel, has caused a media storm not only in Georgia but also in Russia. In the spoof broadcast, Russian troops were forced again to come to the defense of the community of South Ossetia, as-yet unrecognized by the world, and to physically destroy Georgian President Mikheil Saakashvili.
It was an excellent reminder that, in modern conditions, a war of words can often prejudge the outcome of actual fighting.
With the events of the summer of 2008 and Russian tanks rolling towards Tbilisi still fresh in the collective mind, many people in Georgia took everything at face value and began to prepare for the worst. In Moscow, Konstantin Kosachyov, the head of the State Duma Committee for International Affairs described it as a provocation, with Saakashvili behind it personally owing to his interest in constantly mobilizing society and discrediting the opposition. The opposition leader, Nino Burjanadze, had met in Moscow with Prime Minister Vladimir Putin just before the “terrorist attack,” and in the report was portrayed as a head of government who had arrived sitting on the gun of a Russian tank.
Dramatization, like that done on the air by Imedi, is a genre classic. The first experience that had a similar, if not even greater, effect was the radio drama "War of the Worlds” by H.G. Wells. During the broadcast of its first episode on Oct. 30, 1938, it was announced that Martians had landed on Earth and started a war. The U.S. Interior Minister made an address to the nation during the radio drama and expressed confidence that, “the Martians will not get through,” which, incidentally, had just the opposite effect. In the United States, real panic broke out everywhere (note that this was less than a year before World War II started).
It seems that the Georgian leadership decided to take revenge for their relative failure a year and a half ago. Do they understand who they are challenging and what kind of propaganda machine they will have to confront? A propaganda and manipulation machine, which is considered by experts to be one of the best in the world.
The author is a senior researcher at the Institute of Economics at the Russian Academy of Sciences, and professor at Memorial University (Canada).
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