This book examines how Russian and American media narratives inform the ways individuals in both countries consume and construct collective memories of one another in an age of media distrust. Using research on collective memory, media, and the individual mind, this book applies an interdisciplinary sociocognitive framework to study seven 21st century political events involving Russia. With each event, this book analyzes how ideological bias, distortion, and schemata in both Russian and American media outlets work to reestablish a Cold War-like narrative--and by extension, reignite perceived enmities in the individual minds and collective memories of both nations. The book examines this old phenomenon at the interface of conscious media distrust among individuals who subconsciously embrace these constructs, forming memories along the ideological lines promoted by the same institutions they question.

By bringing together content analyses of media texts and empirical data, Reenacting the Enemy serves as an interdisciplinary study of psychological mechanisms behind Russian and US media to uncover both old and new patterns of collective and individual memory constructs in the two societies.