Dynamics of affectivity in newspaper texts during the 1990s: Assessment and comparison with the emotional state of society

Context and relevance. The study of collective emotions is crucial for understanding the socio-psychological state of society during periods of radical transformation. The 1990s in Russia, marked by cultural trauma, are of particular interest for analyzing the dynamics of public sentiment through the lens of media discourse and subjective assessments. Objective: to assess the dynamics of affectivity in newspaper texts during the 1990s, identify its connection with key socio-political events, and conduct a comprehensive comparison with data on the emotional state of society from sociological and socio-psychological surveys. Hypothesis. Media materials reflect the general direction of the society's psycho-emotional state; however, a shift manifesting as the “Pollyanna effect” (a bias towards positive evaluations in retrospect) would be observed in respondents' subjective assessments. Methods and materials. A psycholingustic analysis corpus of 56,789 texts from the “Arguments and Facts” newspaper (1983—2007) was conducted using machine-readable dictionaries to assess R. Plutchik's emotions and C. Osgood's factors. The data were compared with results from a Levada Center[1] sociological survey (contemporary assessments from the 1990s) and a 2024 socio-psychological survey (retrospective assessments, N = 1044). Results. A clear dynamics of affectivity in newspaper texts, correlating with key events of the era, was identified. Discrepancies between objective linguistic markers and subjective assessments were found: retrospective assessments revealed the formation of an “emotional concentrate” with more intense negative experiences compared to press data and contemporary surveys from the 1990s. Conclusions. Newspaper discourse is a relevant but mediated indicator of collective emotions. The identified discrepancies confirm the operation of psychological mechanisms of retrospective distortion and the “Pollyanna effect” in collective memory, highlighting the need for an integrated approach to studying the emotional state of society. [1] ANO Levada Center has been included by the Ministry of Justice in the register of non-profit organizations performing the functions of a foreign agent.