4 ms·

Opinion polling in Germany: https://www.infratest-dimap.de/umfragen-analysen/bundesweit/umfragen/aktuell/russland-bild-der-deutschen/ https://www.infratest-dima

• aguaviva 2y ago
  Except it doesn't support your thesis. The biggest problem with this bunch is that none of the 4 questions asks about pro-Russia sentiment directly. Rather, they are all proxy questions, and at best very loosely-fitting ones. For example the question on media bias -- I someone answers that media coverage of Russia is 'zu negative berichtet', that doesn't mean its because they are sympathetic to Russia per se. While that could be the reason -- it seems more likely that the answer comes from a place of distrusting major media outlets, especially Western ones; and of being more skeptical about the Ukraine war in general (which they are, but again for a host of reasons, generally not having anything to do with their feelings about Russia as a country). The other 3 questions have similar confounds. The one about sanctions can't be used at all in this analysis, really, as it refers directly to policy question with obvious impact on other spheres of life (in this case the effect of these sanctions on the Germany economy). You're just assuming it indicates ipso facto pro-Russia (as a country) sentiment, but that's far from a given in this case. In fact, given the degree to which people there talk about this particular facet of the sanctions debate (all the time), versus how much they talk about their fondness for Russia as a country (basically never) -- it would seem the economic tie-in (along with distrust of standard Wessi policy and narratives on anything) would be the far likely driver for the spread on the numbers here. And lastly: what are these numbers actually telling us? From the media bias poll -- even in the East, a solid majority among those who answered (45-33) consider the "establishment/Wessi" reporting on Russia to be "fair or too positive" -- meaning they basically agree with the overwhelmingly negative -- that is, "anti-Russia" spin of this reporting. From one above it -- 77 percent agree that Russia is a threat to world security! There is a point spread here (Wessis are somewhat likelier to agree), but the main point here is -- to the extent that we agree that this poll can serve as a partial measurement of sentiment in regard to Russia, the actual content of sentiment expressed here is overhelmingly negative. This is what I meant about why what matters is the context behind these questions, not the numbers in pure isolation. Which again, brings us back to qualitative / interpretive analysis. And which of course we aren't going to come a unified position on, which is course perfectly fine.