The World's Newsmakers
This week, Vlast offers a world popularity rating of Russians in the media based on exposure in foreign sources over the fourth quarter of 2009. As a result of the crash of the Neva Express train and the fire at the Lame Horse Club in Perm, the top twenty most frequently mentioned Russians are now joined by two people who had not yet been in their ranks - the Emergencies Minister Sergei Shoigu, and the head of Russian Railways, Vladimir Yakunin. Alexei Miller, Oleg Deripaska and Mikhail Prokhorov remain the key (or at least the most interesting) Russian businessmen from the point of view of foreign journalists. Another trend is that President Dmitry Medvedev has been mentioned about 4,000 more times than Prime Minister Vladimir Putin. This was true in the third quarter as well. During the last quarter, however, both Medvedev and Putin made public appearances that were closely monitored abroad: Medvedev delivered his presidential address on the state of the nation, while Putin took part in a four-hour TV talk show.
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The rating is based on the materials of 100 leading newspapers and magazines in Australia, Argentina, Brazil, Great Britain, Germany, Hong-Kong, Denmark, India, Indonesia, Israel, Spain, Italy, Canada, Lebanon, Malaysia, the Netherlands, New Zealand, the United Arab Emirates, Pakistan, Portugal, Singapore, the USA, France, Sweden and Japan. In the US, Russians in the media appeared in the largest national papers as well as leading state papers. Other countries are represented by newspapers and magazines with a circulation of no less than 5% of the total circulation of newspapers and magazines in the country.
The rating does not take into account news agency and broadcasting company reports. Only the articles in which the name is mentioned along with the words "Russia" and "Russian" were taken into account.
Alexander Izyumov