An Integrative Methodology for Detecting Implicit Propaganda in Political Media Discourse

The article proposes an integrative methodology for detecting implicit propaganda in political media discourse. Although numerous theoretical approaches to propaganda analysis have been developed, including Critical Discourse Analysis, socio-cognitive theory, framing theory, narrative analysis, pragmatics, and multimodal discourse analysis, most of them examine only individual dimensions of propagandistic communication and do not provide their systematic integration into a unified methodological framework. The aim of the study is to develop and theoretically substantiate an integrative methodology that combines complementary analytical approaches to comprehensively detect implicit propaganda. The proposed methodology is grounded in five conceptual principles: multidimensionality, contextuality, multimodality, cognitive mediation, and implicit meaning. Based on these principles, an eight-level analytical model has been developed, encompassing lexical, grammatical, discursive, narrative, framing, pragmatic, cognitive, and multimodal levels of analysis. These levels are integrated into a six-step analytical procedure that enables a systematic transition from describing the linguistic features of a text to reconstructing implicit ideological meanings and the cognitive mechanisms underlying their construction. To demonstrate the practical applicability of the proposed methodology, the framework is applied to an official statement published on the website of the Embassy of the russian federation in Germany. The findings demonstrate that implicit propaganda is constructed through the cumulative interaction of linguistic, discursive, pragmatic, cognitive, and visual mechanisms rather than through explicit persuasive devices alone. The proposed methodology does not replace existing approaches to propaganda analysis but integrates and operationalises their principal theoretical contributions within a single transparent and reproducible analytical framework. The scientific novelty of the study lies in the development of a comprehensive methodology for the integrated analysis of implicit propaganda in contemporary political media discourse.