The special operation defeated the coronavirus

The anxiety of Russians in 2022 has increased markedly, follows from the next report as part of the National Anxiety Index, prepared by the CROS agency. According to the results of the analysis of messages in the media and social networks, its overall level exceeded last year’s level twice. But if in 2021 the fears of Russians were mainly provoked by the coronavirus pandemic, then in the outgoing year no one remembered the abbreviation COVID-19, and the special military operation (SVO) became the main source of anxiety. However, society has managed to “digest” it, the authors of the study are sure.

According to the analysis carried out by CROS, the total index of anxiety in 2022 more than doubled compared to 2021, from 9.8 thousand to 21.4 thousand “media young” (the unit used by CROS to measure the reproduction of anxiety), which is explained by “a tighter agenda overall.” In 2020, this figure reached only 5.7 thousand media young people. Thus, the increase in anxiety among Russians was 119% compared to last year, and 273% by 2020.

Recall that experts rank the fears of Russians based on an analysis of media news (“media index”), as well as posts and comments on social networks (“social media index”). The total index shows the scale of the “information wave” of a particular topic, and the “accumulation” index shows how much it excited ordinary Internet users. If a problem is actively replicated by the media, but does not find a response in social networks, then the authors of the study refer to this topic as “pseudo-fears”. For example, in the first half of the year, fear of an epidemic of monkeypox was recognized as such.

According to the results of the study, the main source of anxiety for Russians in the past year was the NMD, as well as related topics: the escalation of the conflict with the West and the possible use of nuclear weapons, sabotage and the possible transfer of hostilities to the territory of the “old” regions of Russia, partial mobilization.

The first half of the year was also characterized by fears caused by inflation and the departure of foreign companies, but later their relevance decreased, experts say.

“The main difference from 2021 was that Russians have practically ceased to worry about issues related to COVID-19 and vaccination,” the study says. Recall that last year the fears caused by the coronavirus (concerns due to the ban on visiting public places without QR codes and the need to be vaccinated, as well as the direct fear of getting infected), occupied leading positions both in the country as a whole and in individual regions.

However, “despite the high saturation of the agenda with the topic of NWO, in 2022, Russians were also worried about other problems,” the authors of the study make a reservation. So, the inhabitants of Siberia and the Far East were worried about forest fires, the inhabitants of Central Russia, the Urals and the Volga region were worried about the activity of scammers. In some places, for example, in the Nizhny Novgorod and Rostov regions, for some reason, the departure of celebrities caused particular concern.

The list of the most “alarmed” subjects over the past year has changed a lot, follows from the report.

In addition to the traditionally leading Moscow and St. Petersburg, the top ten, for obvious reasons, includes the border regions of Kursk, Belgorod and Bryansk regions, as well as Sevastopol. Buryatia, Trans-Baikal Territory, Yaroslavl and Arkhangelsk regions also added to this list. The latter was already in a similar rating, but if last year the inhabitants of the region were worried about the “invasion of wolves” (in addition to COVID-19), now it is inflation (in addition to the SVO). The most “imperturbable” were the Far East (Jewish Autonomous Region, Kamchatka Territory, Magadan Region, Yakutia and Amur Region), Caucasians (Karachay-Cherkessia, Kabardino-Balkaria and Ingushetia), as well as residents of Mordovia.

It is interesting that Mordovia and Yakutia were the only subjects where the course of the NMD was not among the main fears: the inhabitants of these republics were more worried about inflation, partial mobilization, scammers and forest fires. In general, “SVO-anxiety” was included in the top three fears in 83 out of 85 “old” regions (the authors did not take into account the Donetsk and Lugansk People’s Republics, as well as the Zaporozhye and Kherson regions, which joined Russia on September 30, because they could not analyze the full data for 2022). In 70 regions, she took first place. The second place in terms of frequency of presence is occupied by inflation, which occurs in the top three of 71 regions. In third place is partial mobilization: it can be found in the top 3 half of the subjects.

“Oddly enough, but the general increase in public anxiety was not as dramatic as one might expect,” Andrey Lebedev, CROS analytics director, told Kommersant. “Apparently, during the year, society was able not only to adapt to the , but also to “digest” partial mobilization. To some extent, this indicates “getting used to” the new agenda.”

At the same time, Mr. Lebedev called a “dangerous trend” the growing anxiety associated with sabotage: “If the high positions of this topic in the regions bordering Ukraine are explainable, then its widespread presence in other regions requires special attention.”

According to CROS media project director Petr Kiryan, the NWO agenda is “noticeably more intense” than the coronavirus one, and therefore overtakes it in terms of the level of anxiety created. “In two years, there were three peaks of the coronavirus – lockdown, pandemic and vaccination. In the ten months of 2022, we have also already passed three peaks – the beginning of the NWO, the actions themselves and mobilization, but in a much shorter period, ”said Mr. Kiryan. He also noted that “during the special operation, the media began to strongly influence the climate in society”: “During the coronavirus period, the situation was reversed – the media acted as counter-triggers of public fears.”

Andrew Ashes