The article deals with the ways of media coverage of financial and ethnic distinctions in society.
Analysis is based on the comparative Russian-Swedish research of regional media. The research
revealed that material divides are mostly covered through several discourses: social policies aimed at
elimination of material differences, information on individual solutions for financial problems, mass
media as the helpline for the underprivileged. There are penetrations of material divides issues in
some relative topics but media evidently escape conflicts escalation. The audience in Russia finds
the coverage of these issues unsatisfactory as it does not touch the structural material divides. The
“disparity” discourse was apparent in discussions on ethnic divides and migration. Media do not
present ethnic differences as inequalities and escape of mentioning them except urgent grounds;
ethnic divides are either built into the overall context of material ones or placed into “us and they”
discourse. Being slightly and not systematically articulated in media, material and ethnic diversities
turn to become real gaps which are impossible to overcome both in mind and reality.