{"title":"Moral framing in Ukraine war coverage","authors":"John H Parmelee, Nataliya Roman, Berrin Beasley","doi":"10.1177/17506352241264197","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1177/17506352241264197","url":null,"abstract":"To understand how coverage of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine is being packaged and presented to an international audience, this mixed methods study examines differences in moral framing of the war by English-language international broadcasters in Ukraine, Russia, the UK, and the US. A computational content analysis based on Moral Foundations Theory found the dominant moral domain and sentiment for each article ( N = 935) during the first year of the war, and a qualitative frame analysis shows how framing in the coverage used the moral domains and sentiment to promote a ‘causal interpretation, moral evaluation, and/or treatment recommendation’ (Entman, Framing: Toward clarification of a fractured paradigm, 1993: 52) for those involved in the conflict.","PeriodicalId":501537,"journal":{"name":"Media, War & Conflict","volume":"47 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2024-07-26","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"141772907","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"A fragile narrative: Transformations and consistency in the Russian representation of the war in Ukraine","authors":"Intigam Mamedov","doi":"10.1177/17506352241264436","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1177/17506352241264436","url":null,"abstract":"In February 2022, Russia began a full-scale invasion of Ukraine. The relevant narrative articulated by Vladimir Putin presented it as a short-term mission of military professionals. However, as the war continued, the situation at the front required complicated decisions that the initial narrative was not able to cover. This article analyses the core transformations of the Russian narrative on the war in Ukraine. Appealing to the strategic narrative concept, this article suggests a framework for assessing the narrative’s viability. The author reveals that, although the current modified narrative is not able to provide a clear and coherent explanation corresponding to people’s lived experiences, it is still effective due to the following reasons. First, it is built on and perceived within an intuitively familiar discursive landscape that has been promoted for decades. Second, the external prerequisites of the viability, such as the scale of its articulation through propaganda or existing opportunities to perceive alternative narratives, remain strong. Thus, it is likely that most of the rational argumentation in the narrative will be further replaced by its sacralization, and the information isolation will be continuously reinforced.","PeriodicalId":501537,"journal":{"name":"Media, War & Conflict","volume":"94 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2024-07-26","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"141772904","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"A cog in a wheel? Journalism under pressure during coups d’état in Burkina Faso","authors":"Marie Fierens, Emma Heywood, Lassané Yaméogo","doi":"10.1177/17506352241262472","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1177/17506352241262472","url":null,"abstract":"This article explores how the (attempted) coups and popular uprising that occurred in Burkina Faso between October 2014 and January 2022 have impacted the professional boundaries of journalism. These events are considered crucial in understanding the complex and ongoing interactions between political actors and the media, and contribute to a better understanding of the broader reality of journalism’s boundary-making process across Africa. Drawing on semi-structured interviews conducted with journalists, editors and journalism teachers in Ouagadougou in 2022, this article investigates the roles that private and public media journalists aimed to play in these extreme conditions and how their reactions reflect the constantly evolving nature of the journalistic profession.","PeriodicalId":501537,"journal":{"name":"Media, War & Conflict","volume":"245 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2024-07-26","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"141772906","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Digitally witnessable war from pereklychka to propaganda: Unfolding Telegram communication during Russia’s war in Ukraine","authors":"Miglė Bareikytė, Mykola Makhortykh","doi":"10.1177/17506352241255890","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1177/17506352241255890","url":null,"abstract":"The witnessing of wars is being transformed by digital platforms. In this article, the authors empirically investigate and develop the novel approach to the study of witnessing, in particular the non-institutionalized form of inconspicuous digital witnessing which thrives in platform communities in the context of Russia’s war in Ukraine. By empirically examining communication practices on Telegram, a highly popular platform in Ukraine, the article explores the ways in which online platforms enable the rise of inconspicuous witnessing. Using a mixed-method approach, the authors trace the changes in digital witnessing practices in the beginning and during different periods of the Russian occupation, by investigating over 2,000 messages from a specific Telegram channel with over 150,000 users devoted to one occupied Ukrainian city. By identifying a number of changes in the analysed Telegram chat communication practices over time, they propose an empirically-grounded concept of the digitally witnessable war that acknowledges the critical polyvocality of contemporary war witnessing practices.","PeriodicalId":501537,"journal":{"name":"Media, War & Conflict","volume":"32 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2024-07-26","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"141772908","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Book Review: Curtis D Carbonell, World War Two Simulated: Digital Games and Reconfigurations of the Past","authors":"Conway Waddington","doi":"10.1177/17506352241256599","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1177/17506352241256599","url":null,"abstract":"","PeriodicalId":501537,"journal":{"name":"Media, War & Conflict","volume":"77 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2024-05-31","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"141188287","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Ali M Abushbak, Tawseef Majeed, Krishna Sankar Kusuma
{"title":"Mobile phone activism during Israel’s ‘Operation Guardian of the Wall’ in Gaza","authors":"Ali M Abushbak, Tawseef Majeed, Krishna Sankar Kusuma","doi":"10.1177/17506352241249063","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1177/17506352241249063","url":null,"abstract":"The 11-day war in May 2021 between Israel and Palestine (Gaza) is worth investigating as a phenomenon of recording war testimonies and memories by civilian mobile phone users. This article explores mobile phone usage by Palestinian civilians to record and document everyday war narratives. The users document, archive and disseminate diverse war memories on various social media platforms. Semi-structured (ethnographic) interviews and interpretative phenomenological analysis (IPA) are included in the methodological design to understand the patterns of mobile phone activism by civilians during Israel’s Operation Guardian of the Wall in Gaza. The authors argue that the physical and digital (phygital) spaces exist simultaneously, forming the socio-psychological presence of the users in the war and making them significant stakeholders of the Israel–Palestine war narrative. The emergence of a phygital presence signifies a comprehensive representation and archive of civilian war testimonies. Users’ mobile phone footage plays a significant role in shaping discourses of dissent and mobile activism, driving and sustaining collective emotions regarding the repercussions of war. These discourses also contribute to the socio-psychological construction of a phygital memory archive, enriching the conflict’s broader narrative.","PeriodicalId":501537,"journal":{"name":"Media, War & Conflict","volume":"19 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2024-05-04","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"140886878","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Adapting Nord Stream 2: How Russia adapts strategic narratives to English-speaking Polish and German audiences","authors":"Christiern Santos Okholm","doi":"10.1177/17506352241243301","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1177/17506352241243301","url":null,"abstract":"Despite extensive scrutiny of how Russia has weaponized information, little work has been done on how it takes different audiences into account when designing its strategic narratives. Although scholars and practitioners agree on the importance of fitting narratives to audiences, the fact that Russia builds knowledge on audiences and that its practices are informed by a Soviet legacy of information warfare, little is known about the strategies Russia uses to adapt its strategic narratives to audiences. Through a comparative narrative study, the article investigates how Russian state media promote different narratives on Nord Stream 2 to German, Polish and English-speaking audiences. It shows how these are shaped by four adaptation strategies in which Russia amplifies, bridges, transforms and pushes back on the audiences’ pre-existing structures of meaning. This article contributes to the existing literature by deepening our knowledge of the relationship between the design of strategic narratives and their intended audience.","PeriodicalId":501537,"journal":{"name":"Media, War & Conflict","volume":"177 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2024-05-04","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"140889863","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Keyword-assisted topic models reveal the dynamics in the main media frames of the Grand Ethiopian Renaissance Dam (2011–2022)","authors":"Salsabil M Abdalbaki","doi":"10.1177/17506352241241159","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1177/17506352241241159","url":null,"abstract":"Framing is a central concept during times of dispute because it can escalate the dispute or push it toward cooperation. Contributing to the automatic identification of frames in conflict studies, this article aims at examining the dynamics of the main media frames emphasized by Egypt, Sudan and Ethiopia over the Grand Ethiopian Renaissance Dam. These frames represent the factors of power and hydro-hegemony between the three countries, including the geographic location, military intervention, mediation, agreements and economic dimensions. Keyword-Assisted Topic Models (KeyATM) are implemented to analyse the English governmental and non-governmental newspapers that covered this dispute the most ( N = 12) over 11 years (2011–2022). While the results show the Egyptian and Sudanese media are dominated by the mediation and agreements frames, the Ethiopian media emphasizes the economic frame. They also confirm the existence of hegemony and counter-hegemony between the downstream and upstream which can be attributed to the dynamics in the adopted frames.","PeriodicalId":501537,"journal":{"name":"Media, War & Conflict","volume":"52 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2024-05-02","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"140833187","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Antonio Prieto-Andrés, Cayetano Fernández, Alma López-Avilés
{"title":"The visual representation of Ukrainian and Afghan refugees in the Spanish press","authors":"Antonio Prieto-Andrés, Cayetano Fernández, Alma López-Avilés","doi":"10.1177/17506352241249036","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1177/17506352241249036","url":null,"abstract":"The public’s understanding of the situation of refugees largely depends on how they are represented by the media. This article analyses this representation by studying photographs that appear in four mainstream Spanish newspapers of varied political orientation, comparing two paradigmatic examples: that of Afghan refugees versus Ukrainian refugees. The objective of this analysis is to determine the differences and similarities between how each case is covered, using a mixed quantitative and qualitative content analysis method to determine the images’ denotative and connotative aspects, based on ‘framing theory’. Findings show that, although all the refugees are presented primarily from a human-interest angle, there is a significant degree of depersonalization in their photographic presentation due to the framing and stylistic elements employed. Also, Afghans are viewed with greater suspicion than Ukrainians, with a quarter of their images being associated with the idea of conflict.","PeriodicalId":501537,"journal":{"name":"Media, War & Conflict","volume":"41 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2024-04-27","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"140811069","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Digital witnesses to the crime: Visual representation of the Bucha massacre across social media platforms","authors":"Bartosz Hamarowski, Maria Lompe","doi":"10.1177/17506352241243302","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1177/17506352241243302","url":null,"abstract":"This article investigates the role of social media platforms in the visual representation of the Bucha massacre perpetrated by Russian forces during the aggression against Ukraine in 2022. By considering the interconnectedness of the online and offline spheres, the authors explore the impact of social media on the coverage of the massacre. The study focuses on a comprehensive analysis of 6,185 images disseminated on Twitter, Facebook and Instagram between 29 March and 15 September 2022. Through an analysis of the intricate dynamics between war crimes, visual representations and social media platforms, the article invites contemplation on how digital artifacts shape our collective understanding of historical atrocities.","PeriodicalId":501537,"journal":{"name":"Media, War & Conflict","volume":"4 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2024-04-11","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"140563716","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}