Identifying Altitudinal Change in Post-Conflict Scenarios and Pathways to Rehabilitation: Case Study of Japanese Students’ Perceptions of Russia and Their Sources of Information in 2021-2022

Recent crises in international relations have created tensions in communication and hindered the achievement of understanding between societies. Under these complicated circumstances, young people are not only objects of public influence but also agenda-setting actors capable of learning and acting on the basis of knowledge about the international situation. This article focuses on how the Japanese students perceive their close neighbor Russia and examines how their views on the image of the neighboring country and its citizens have changed from 2021 to 2022. To examine the changes in perception, within the research project “Student’s representations of neighboring countries: Russia and Japan,” students from four Japanese universities were interviewed (online questionnaire). In the present work the results of the studies are analyzed in order to draw conclusions about the drivers of the change in the public perception of Russia. The author focused on university students for this study because it was assumed that they would eventually become part of the political elite of the country. The tendency for social and political advocacy among the youth was also a contributing factor that supported university students being the group favorably consider for this research. The university student population also provides a higher level of homogeneity among respondents, increasing the internal validity of the findings. Comparing the results of the 2022 survey with the results of the 2021 survey, we can observe some significant changes in the perception of Russia by Japanese youth. First of all, we can observe a shift in perception from the sphere of culture to the sphere of security. The quotes from students throughout this article should be taken into account when looking at the results and analysis. This research also confirms that negative and positive cognitive opinions about a neighboring country can coexist among Japanese youth.