Abstract
The Ukrainian–Russian conflict of 2013–2017 is characterized as ‘hybrid’ warfare, with a crucial role of informational component. Using ideological discourse analytic tools, this article demonstrates how two prominent Russian TV channels shaped the persuasive message, creating strong unity and mobilizing a high level of support among the national audience. Based on legitimation and de-legitimation patterns, Channel One and Russia-1 built ideologically polarized opposition between ‘Our’ and ‘Their’ sides of the conflict. The wide range of editorializing tools, socio-cultural and historical Soviet-time constructs, and references to gay culture served to promote one group and to debase the opposition. Close institutional ties between government and media in Russia sustain multiplicity and intertextuality of ‘general line’, thus eliminating discordant interpretations. The article shows strong evidence that the analyzed TV news programs present a typical illustration of ideological discourse, exploited by the Russian government in order to achieve its political goals.
Keywords
Introduction
In their article published in 2013, on the eve of the ‘Euromaidan’ revolution and subsequent Russian–Ukrainian conflict, Russian military officers Col. S.G. Chekinov and Lt Gen. S.A. Bogdanov (2013) stated,
A new-generation war will be dominated by information and psychological warfare that will seek to […] depress the opponent’s armed forces personnel and population morally and psychologically.
With new technological abilities to enter the conflict zones and conduct 24/7 broadcasting, media obtained exceptional power to influence the image of conflicting parties in public opinion (Kampf and Liebes, 2013; Nye, 2004; Sheafer and Shenhav, 2009). Thereby, media became a central battlefield, where the battle for information and therefore for people’s ‘hearts and minds’ was conducted (Tumber and Palmer, 2004: 160). Mediasphere is a place where language becomes ‘a medium of domination and social force’ (Habermas, 1974) and where discourse has social consequences and ideological effects (Verschueren, 2015). Whereas a lot of attention was given to ideological analysis of media discourse in democratic political systems, the ‘hybrid’ regimes, like that of modern Russia, often stay out of the scope of scholarly analysis.
This article aims to reconstruct the framing of the Ukrainian crisis issue as it was presented by central Russian TV channels at the time of the Euromaidan revolution and Crimea occupation (November 2013 to March 2014). By discussing ideologically colored discursive acts and mapping their functions in news media discourse, the study demonstrates how Russian media shaped a persuasive message, able to mobilize a high level of support among the national audience.
In what follows, I will discuss the ideological influences affecting news media routines and how they are embodied into the journalistic practices. Special attention will be devoted to the challenges for an objective reportage accompanying a coverage of violent conflicts. Later, I will present a short overview of the Russian news media environment and define its predisposition to exerting ideological influences on journalistic work.
News media discourse: Journalistic practices and ideological influences
The question of ideology in news media discourse is reasonably sensitive for media researchers since ideological bias can bring manipulation and thus control over the minds of the audience. Mass media, being a main field for ideological clashes and political struggle over meaning (Verschueren, 2015), could become an effective instrument for dissemination of certain ideologies. When a reporter or a source can influence a long-term news discourse over meanings, they have influence over dominant ideological positions, those ‘common sense’ understandings about individuals, institutions, and occurrences (Berkowitz, 2009). In this way, a primary objective of most media discourse analysis is often the registering of the presence of bias or ideology in language or the problematizing of power relations in society (Cotter, 2001).
For the purpose of this article, I will separate non-linguistic, external ideological influences and influences that appeared as a result of individual journalistic work. This division, however, is rather nominal, while journalistic routines are largely a product of an institutional context that shapes and is shaped by professional ideologies, production routines, and power concerns (Catenaccio et al., 2011). The second group of influences, in turn, can be divided into the selection (choice of topics, facts and sources) and presentation (textual embodiment) stages.
The first, external, group of influences, in accordance with Preston’s (2009: 7) typology, consists of domains of organizational forces, media routines and norms, political-economic factors, as well as the domain of cultural and ideological power. As stated by Hanitzsch and Mellado (2011), the systemic level of influence combines relevant social, cultural, and ideological contexts within which journalists work, including the political and legal conditions of news making. Considering strategic use of language, Chilton (2004) names such a non-linguistic strategy as ‘coercion’: the reliance on power or a higher status to achieve a certain goal. Devices of coercion range from laws and commands to the milder forms of pressure exerted by questions and requests, and also the setting of agendas, the choice of topics, or the control of access to communicative resources. In their cross-national comparative study, Hanitzsch and Mellado (2011) show that journalists’ perceptions of political and economic influences are highly dependent on the national context. For Russian journalists, the level of political and economic influence was indicated much higher than in Western countries, but lower than in China and Turkey. In addition, Hanitzsch and Mellado (2011) revealed that political influences are perceived to be more powerful in less democratic countries (so-called ‘hybrid’ regimes), as well as in nations with lower levels of press freedom and higher levels of political parallelism. A top-down ‘hierarchical’ framing in media–government relationships, analyzed in indexing theory (Livingston and Bennett, 2003) or Entman’s (2003) cascading activation model, could be taken into consideration as both external and selection-stage influences on journalistic work.
Essentially, journalism’s paradigm follows a science-like model, where reporters gather authoritative data and then present it without explicitly taking a side in the discourse (Berkowitz, 2009). This professional practice is based on a journalists’ fundamental belief that they cannot simply make up news, but instead must rely on what they have been told by somebody holding a perceived level of authority (Berkowitz, 2009). The natural ‘power’ of journalists in this case is the ability to select and range sources and opinions by giving them salience and appropriate framing in the text. Representation of certain opinions and misrepresentation of others then become basic tools for political control (Chilton, 2004). Placement is another powerful instrument in the journalistic arsenal: selecting specific claims within the newsworthy material as headlines and positioning these headlines within the paper, journalists signal which texts, and what about them, are most noteworthy (Tenenboim-Weinblatt and Baden, 2016). Inevitably, journalists will use declarative verbs to express how he or she conceives an action, event or actor (Kampf, 2013; Rohe and Nir, 1990). Evaluation includes an appraisal of the certainty and epistemic status of reported claims and events by use of distancing (‘claim’, ‘say’), corroborating (‘confirm’), or doubtful (‘allege’) reporting verbs or by placing expressions in quotation marks (Tenenboim-Weinblatt and Baden, 2016). The concept of framing is one way to consider the impact of reporters and their sources on meanings (Pan and Kosicki, 2001). To frame is to select some aspects of a perceived reality and make them more salient in a communicating text, in such a way as to promote a particular problem definition, causal interpretation, moral evaluation, and/or treatment recommendation (Entman, 1993).
The coverage of a violent conflict often challenges journalistic professional norms and practices. The government possesses the greatest strength in promotion and spreading of frames and thereby sets a dominant interpretation of events throughout the conflict and identifies a problem and a solution (Entman, 2003). If an elite discord or a powerful counterframe, produced by elites, is absent, the media tend to adopt the administration’s framing (Entman, 2003). The greater the ability of a government to mobilize and maintain a high level of political consensus in support of its policies, the more likely it is that the news media will play a supportive role in a conflict or a peace process (Wolfsfeld, 2011). According to Wolfsfeld’s Politics-Media-Politics principle, politics always sets an agenda for the journalists, and due to their reactive nature the media turn the events that already happened into news. With that, the media often tend to simplify conflicts and convert them into series of dramatic events (Wolfsfeld, 2011). The predominance of dramatic elements in the coverage is one of the results of increasing commercialization of the journalistic workplace since ‘melodrama sells’ (Liebes and Kampf, 2009b). It is especially hard to provide neutral and unbiased reportage when new professional norms encourage journalists to express their feelings (Liebes and Kampf, 2009b). This is amplified at the time of a violent conflict, when patriotic sentiment and ethnic and cultural belonging calls upon the journalist to take part in the conflict, to be a representative of a national community as well as being its weapon, in the battle of images and soundbites (Zandberg and Neiger, 2005).
Russian media as participants in Russian–Ukrainian conflict
The enduring conflict between Russia and Ukraine is defined by scientists as a ‘non-linear’ (Perry, 2015), ‘hybrid’ (Pyung-Kyun, 2015), or ‘informational’ (Darczewska, 2014) warfare. The Ukrainian crisis is the greatest geopolitical change in the region of Eurasia since the collapse of the Soviet Union at the end of 1991. Russia’s annexation of Crimea and its undermining of Ukrainian sovereignty presented direct challenges to the whole post-Cold War security order, which Russia had previously stoutly defended. Despite the vagueness of the conflict definition, all the authors stress the crucial role of an informational component in this type of war. Scholars point out to notable changes in the routine work of the Russian media system with the beginning of Euromaidan – a protest movement in Ukraine against President Yanukovich (Horbyk, 2015). One of the changes is a considerable intensification of Ukrainian conflict coverage in Russian media, up to predomination over domestic news (Horbyk, 2015). In addition, the content of prominent media itself obtained obvious ideological coloring (Lavalle, 2014). Some scholars characterize the work of Russian media of that time as a ‘disinformation campaign’ (Darczewska, 2014) and even a ‘propaganda machine’ (Lipman, 2014: 180). The independent non-governmental polling and sociological research organization ‘Levada-Center’ approved statistically that President Putin’s rating in the past was highly dependable on ‘propagandist campaigns in media around elections, wars (like Russian-Georgian war in 2008) and terroristic attacks’ (Volkov, 2013). Since Putin’s regime gained significant political dividends from the Ukrainian conflict (20–25% rating leap after Crimea’s occupation; Volkov, 2015), this issue might have been at the top of the political agenda. The framing of the issue designed by central television would become in this case the question of vital importance.
Russian prominent media researcher Vartanova ascertains that the crisis of professional norms in Russian media is because of external regulation: ‘Integrated state-business elite has supported the use of political media in new circumstances as traditional instruments of political elite management’ (2012: 129). The current media market in Russia is divided primarily between state-owned Gazprom Media and National Media Group controlled by Putin’s personal friends (Vartanova, 2012: 125). National Media Group now controls 11 of Russia’s 17 largest TV networks (Lipman, 2014: 186). While some individual online outlets may still remain at least partly critical toward the government (which is responding to them with ever harsher Internet control measures), they have limited access to the broad audience. TV has remained the leading medium with 74.3% daily reach (91.l% weekly reach). 1 Notably, the consolidation of state control over the Russian media sphere had been happening immediately before and during the Euromaidan events and the subsequent Ukraine–Russia crisis (Horbyk, 2015). In such a political situation, the use of media as a strategic governmental instrument is almost unavoidable: ‘The Kremlin’s idea is to own all forms of political discourse, to not let any independent movements develop outside of its walls’ (Pomerantsev, 2014).
Method
In order to be able to conduct ideological content analysis of Russian channels’ coverage of the Ukrainian crisis, one must read (in the broadest sense) these texts in the light of media strategies, typically used in ideological media discourse. The first one is legitimation – the strategy defined as a discourse that explains and justifies social activity and typically involves providing ‘good reasons, grounds, or acceptable motivations for past or present action’ (Van Dijk, 1998). This strategy involves what Van Leeuwen (2007) refers to as ‘moral evaluation legitimation’, often combined with the authority’s legitimation, as when governmental authority pronounces a certain group of people a ‘threat’ to state security. Legitimation (or ‘justification’) discourse also includes patterns such as ‘blaming’ and ‘denying’. According to Wodak (2006), they serve to promote one group and to debase or attack the opposition with positive self-presentation and negative other-presentation. The war discourse studies emphasize creating divided communities as a strategy, employed in order to justify war (Hodges, 2015; Oddo, 2011). Identities are intentionally produced (not simply found) and are the result of discursive tactics that play in various ways upon dimensions of sameness and difference. Sameness among in-group members is highlighted while downplaying differences to create unity. At the same time, differences are made salient through the articulation of various forms of distance between the in-group and out-group, whether social, cultural, political, geographical, or moral (Hodges, 2015).
This research focuses on two central state-owned Russian channels: Channel One and Russia-1, both having the highest average daily rates 2 among Russian TV channels. From each channel, one news program was included in the research: ‘Voskresnoje Vremya’ (Sunday Time) on Channel One and ‘Vesti nedely (News of the week) with Evgeniy Kiselyov’ on Russia-1. These two newscasts are broadcast on Sundays and have larger volume than daily newscasts, aiming to review all newsbreaks of the week. Through the keyword search from the last week of November 2013 (the beginning of Euromaidan events) to the last week of March 2014 (signing of the treaty between Crimea and the Russian Federation), 28 newscasts, 4 devoted to the theme of the ‘Ukrainian crisis’, were extracted. The text transcripts of Channel One newscasts were retrieved from the official website (http://www.1tv.ru/); the newscasts of Russia-1 were available only in video format (http://live.russia.tv/) and therefore were transcribed by the author. The issue was quite salient throughout the specified period, with the exception of two abrupt ‘drops’ during the New Year holiday and Olympic Games 2014 in Sochi (see Graph 1).
Salience dynamic of ‘Ukrainian crisis’ issue. 3
Defining ‘us’ and ‘them’
In this section I identify the main categories of division in the Ukrainian conflict as they were presented in the coverage of the two channels. These categories compose overarching thematic formations, labeled ‘us’ and ‘them’, that are claimed to be the core framing pattern of the current discourse. The two subparagraphs are therefore devoted to the analysis of ‘our’ side legitimation and de-legitimation of ‘their’ side, strongly accentuated in the coverage. I show how ideological media discourse was built and maintained by means of revealing the range of journalistic practices and instruments. In particular, the third piece of the analysis is focused on editorializing practices, applied with a view to discrediting one side of the conflict and heroizing the other.
The current discourse has a rather complicated, poly-elemental structure, so division between ‘us’ and ‘them’ here goes in several directions (see Table 1). There are two main division lines: in the Maidan context, it is ‘Maidan’ against ‘Anti-Maidan’, and in the general transnational context, it can be defined as ‘Russia’ against ‘the West’.
Division categories.
Maidan supporters versus government supporters
Legitimation discourse is by definition group based (Van Dijk, 1998). Thereby, in such discourse, membership criteria, actions, goals, values, or access to resources of one group should be inconsistent with those of other groups. The two groups portrayed in the coverage are two protest movements: Maidan – for European integration – and ‘Anti-Maidan’ – the movement against Maidan and for the closer union with the Russian Federation. The Ukrainian government together with the special police force ‘Berkut’ tried to restrict and extinguish the Maidan protest, so they also can be considered on the ‘Anti-Maidan’ side of the conflict. In the depiction of two conflicting parties, strong legitimation and de-legitimation patterns were found.
One of the powerful instruments of de-legitimation, used in the current discourse, is a portrayal of ‘Maidan’ supporters as radical nationalists and, ultimately, as neo-fascists. Lexico-grammar choices in journalistic text are of highest importance since they ‘simultaneously constitute representations, social relations and social identities’ (Chouliaraki, 2000). In order to see the full picture of the linguistic choices throughout the text, I have identified ‘negative’ nominalizations, used in relation to Maidan participants. The distribution of negative and positive nouns is derived from the journalists’ applying of highly moralized lexical resources (see Van Leeuwen’s discussion of moral evaluations, 2007). The most frequent negatively valued nominalizations were ‘radicals’, ‘extremists’, ‘nationalists’, and finally, ‘fascists/Nazi’. All of them refer to ultra-right political views; although the first two labels are generally linked with violent riots, the last two have an obvious connotation with the events of the Great Patriotic War (Matveev, 2014). To compare the frequency of nominalizations found in the coverage of each month, I have built the graphs (Graphs 2 and 3) taking into consideration the quantity of references per page. On both graphs, one can see a sharp growth of all negative nominalizations from December to January, which indicates an intensification of the demonization discourse. At the same time, the differences between the coverages of the two channels are noticeable: while Russia-1 took the ‘nationalistic tinted’ direction, Channel One framed the protest in a more general mode, as a riot of radicals and extremists. With that, the perceptible gradual growth of ‘fascist’ and ‘Nazi’ nominalizations on Channel One from December to March points out which eventually is inclined to the same de-legitimation strategy.
Nominalizations of ‘Maidan participants’ – frequency: Channel One.
Nominalizations of ‘Maidan participants’ – frequency: Russia-1.
The image of a violent crowd as a leitmotiv of Maidan protest reporting appears constantly on both channels. When showing the Maidan mob, Channel One uses a broad range of filming instruments: tense music, background drums, rewinding of the tape, quick change of frames, close-ups, and so forth – almost transforming the news report into a kind of adventure movie. This effect, on the one hand, is called to threaten the audience, and on the other hand, to detach a possible emotional connection to protesters as ‘ordinary people’, rebelling against the corrupt government (see Liebes, 1997). The ‘human face’ of Maidan is rarely seen; mostly the protesters are shown as armed people in masks, preparing for battle or as an impersonal crowd, chanting slogans. There are almost no scenes portraying Maidan supporters as victims of violent clashes, wounded or killed. The deaths of Maidan activists are only mentioned in passing, without any deeper focus. At the same time, throughout the coverage there are plenty of interviews with wounded ‘Berkut’ soldiers or extremely emotional scenes of crying mothers (Russia-1, 23 February 2014), wife (Channel One, 23 March 2014) or a crying soldier, who ‘escaped’ from Kiev and came back home to Crimea (Channel One, 2 March 2014). Such emotional positioning has the potential to change the audience’s perspective and attitude (Jay, 2002).
In addition, the contrast between the faceless crowd and the individuals was accentuated by giving a voice to government supporters (the division based on Table 1 categories): the Anti-Maidan or ‘pro-Russian’ position was voiced three times more frequently (see Table 2) than that of the Maidan participants or local people supporting protests. This sample contains only quotations of ‘witnesses from the street’; the quotes of experts, authorities, or journalists from other media were not included.
Voicing opinions ‘from the street’.
To the first two categories were distributed quotations with an explicit one-sided message (the examples analyzed further). The ‘neutral’ category comprises not only ambiguous opinions (when an interviewee mentions his or her neutrality or hesitates), but also those with an unclearly uttered opinion or without any political/ideological position at all. Another group of quotes included in the ‘neutral’ category contains ‘conciliatory’ utterances, such as ‘we wish to live together in peace’ and ‘we want to help our brotherly people’ (Channel One, 9 March 2014).
Pro-Maidan interviewees express mostly rough and aggressive claims about authorities:
We’re losing patience, and soon we’ll break their ridges. This scum, sitting in Koncha-Zaspa and eating caviar … They’ve already been in government, they were ministers and such. And what? Has anything changed?! (Russia-1, 16 February 2014)
The Anti-Maidan quotes can be combined into five general groups of messages, all of which demonize them and delegitimize their actions:
De-legitimation on economic grounds. People in Maidan are not ‘working people’; they do not pay taxes and obstruct the state’s economy from functioning in a normal manner:
These people are on strike – Lvov, and all … But who works instead? Our region. Luganskaya oblast’, Donetskaya oblast’. Everybody works for them because they need to get their pension in time. And they are standing here. It’s profitable for them, because they work abroad for their entire life. In Poland … (Channel One, 15 December 2013)
De-legitimation on cultural grounds. Political, cultural and historical connections between Ukraine and Russia are much stronger and more ‘native’ than those to Western Europe:
We wish to express our civil position. We want to say that we have the same way only with Russia. We are bound with the blood ties, the culture ties and, most importantly, with the economic ties. (Russia-1, 2 March 2014)
Exposing ‘a Western conspiracy’. Maidan is sponsored and organized by European Union (EU) and the United States (USA):
People’s minds just stopped working – Assistant Secretary of USA, American senators go directly and speak at Maidan square … And that is regarded as ‘non-interference’! This means that not only ‘normal’ people came out to voice their protest. It is obviously orchestrated … (Channel One, 15 December 2013)
De-legitimation on the basis of connections with Nazism/fascism. Maidan is portrayed not as a peaceful demonstration but as a violent nationalistic coup:
Just take a look at it – banditry is marching through the country with black Bandera
5
flags. Fascism outbreaks! All of us must stand to protect our Homeland. (Russia-1, 26 January 2014)
Victim–perpetrator reversal. Berkut soldiers are true victims of violent riots:
Thousands of
In most quotes, uttering an anti-West position, the implied message is pro-Russian. In this way, Russia is seen by interviewees as a better partner and ally for Ukraine than the USA or the EU. In some way, Russia is even considered not a foreign country but ‘our homeland’. Especially dramatic and vivid quotes of this type (‘Russia as a true-home’) appeared in newscasts devoted to the Crimean issue.
It is important to note that throughout the coverage there were no expert opinions from the pro-Maidan side; journalists, political scientists, and historians criticize the EU and the US policy on the Ukrainian issue, nationalistic radicalism, and expose ‘sponsored’ protests. Perceived separation of Maidan participants from experts in the field or some substantial analytical background makes the ‘Maidan agenda’ superficial. The protest is portrayed as a local issue, which concerns only a small group of marginal people in Western Ukraine and therefore cannot be integrated into the national context.
With the majority of unambiguous quotes, the audience gets a clear picture of black and white, where nuances and complexity of the problem are shaded. The viewer therefore cannot cross an imaginary barrier of slogans and catchphrases and proceed to the deeper understanding of motives and aspirations of the two sides of the conflict. The lack of ambiguous claims and repeating of the same messages by multiple speakers in a similar manner from week to week launch multiplicity and intertextuality effects (Shenhav, 2015). Constructed in this way, pervasive narrative can not only have an effect on individual members’ assessments of and responses to a given situation, but can also be widely perceived as conveying truths, thereby gaining a dominant status over other narratives (Shenhav, 2015).
Editorializing
To discount the social significance and seriousness of the Maidan demonstrations, the journalists’ explicit framing ‘carnivalizes’ (Bakhtin, [1965] 1984) the protest, with subsequent moral denunciation. Channel One describes ‘Maidan’ as a rather cheerful place, a kind of festival:
On Euromaidan they are always entertained. Now they watch Champions League on the big screen, then listen to a concert … (Channel One, 15 December 2013)
Meanwhile, people on the opposing side ‘… didn’t come here for music. They still hope to be heard’. Channel One returns to this image of Maidan protesters’ ‘flippancy’ and Anti-Maidan ‘sobriety’ when contraposing ‘dreams’ to ‘reality’:
Maidan symbolizes the division: of people who
The Russia-1 journalist often uses metaphoric language in his descriptions:
People wear biker protection and carnival chain armors. Over here we see the ancient African military order. Here is the battle elephant … (Russia-1, 8 December 2013)
The metaphor here is used as mockery: the Maidan activists behave in a primitive and barbaric way, like ancient African warriors. A comparison of a tractor with a battle elephant continues the ‘African’ theme and adds a humoristic element to the picture. Another carnivalizing description:
Permanent residents of Maidan willingly pose for photos and look
In the crowd indeed were people in different costumes (as shown on camera), but the accent, set by the journalist, emphasizes this carnival element of the protest and imposes it upon the general image of the protesting mob. A comparison with ‘Freetown Christiania’ in Copenhagen (Russia-1, 19 January 2014), and mentioning the sale of photos and wall magnets amid the barricades (Russia-1, 22 December 2013) shift the discourse from socio-political to one of touristic entertainment. Carnival ‘lowering’ appears also in video sequence construction and choice of interviewees. For example, the first protester from the Maidan ever to be interviewed throughout the coverage appears in the reportage of 8 December 2013 of Channel One. The man holds a swine’s head on a long stick and tells the journalist he wants to join the partisan fight against the government. Reporting implicitly positions this marginal voice as a representative protester, thereby distorting the whole picture. An interview from an Anti-Maidan rally follows immediately. This time we see a totally adequate and serious man expressing support for the President. Such juxtaposing of the two images creates a contrast, which gives the audience a very simple ‘clue’ for understanding the ‘alignment of forces’.
The quotes provided throughout the coverage are consistently accompanied by editorials and commentaries, creating the ‘virtual blending of opinion and news’ (Potter, 2003). A very vivid example of such a blend is presented in a Russia-1 newscast (1 December 2013).
What exactly brings Ukraine the Agreement of Association (and this is 900 pages of English text) – was not discussed in Maidan. From the tribune
– Well, this is a step forward for Ukraine.
– What is this step?
– Well, free trade, visa-free regime …
We can compare this piece with the following fragment from the same program:
In eastern industrial regions people
Why does Europe need us? Just as a raw appendage? To soak up the rest and sell their products here?
In both fragments, prior to the interview the journalist gives the audience a sort of ‘key-frame’, instructions on how to decode each quotation. If simplified, it can be interpreted as, in the first case, ‘people know nothing, they only listen to catchy slogans’ or, in the second case, ‘people understand the true intentions of EU’.
Even when showing a neutral quote, a journalist inserts it into the context of his ‘general line’. In such reportage, the quotations do not lead the story or ‘unwrap’ a new angle of discussion. In the following example, a ‘neutral’ voice is not completely neutral because it still presents a strong pro-Russian bias. Furthermore, the journalist does not continue this ‘neutrality’ and immediately shifts to another issue:
This year the Donetsk miner Alexander Krivoschokov has turned twenty-five. He is from the new generation of Ukrainians, and he is one of those
– I chose a neutral position. But I can’t, of course, speak ill of Russia in any case. Still, I speak Russian, think in Russian, and my roots are also Russian.
The reviewed coverage reveals some mechanisms that, combined, created an unambiguous framing of Maidan and Anti-Maidan protest movements (according to coverage patterns described in Liebes, 1997; Liebes and Kampf, 2009a). The first is sanitizing the screen from the suffering of Maidan participants to prevent the audience from seeing pictures of their deaths or injuries and thereby the feeling of empathy for ‘the other’. The second is equalizing of ‘Berkut’ and ‘Maidan’ military status, as if police forces are exercising power not against civilians but against an armed military group. The third is depersonalization of casualties on the Maidan side while accentuating the emotional and physical suffering of ‘Berkut’ soldiers and their relatives. Fourth are the carnivalization and demonization of Maidan participants, describing them either as an ‘exotic tourist attraction’ or as a violent crowd. Both descriptions are deeply interconnected with decontextualization. Thus, the uprising was ‘withdrawn’ from a nationwide political context and framed as nationalistic riots, supported by marginal groups and a negligible number of ‘ordinary’ people, who were deluded by catchy slogans.
Russia versus ‘the West’
The Russian state and Russian citizens are officially not a part of the conflict. However, one can observe a progressive domestication of the issue by means of an ‘us/them’ dichotomy construction on the basis of the ‘Russian world’ geopolitical concept. This broad pattern combines cultural, religious, and historical symbols, essential for creating a sense of being a part of a ‘single entity’ of Russian-speaking people, no matter where they live (see more about the concept in Laruelle, 2015). In this way, the Russian-speaking Ukrainian population is treated as ‘brotherly people’ and in fact equated to Russian citizens. Ukraine is presented as a traditional political, cultural, and historical sphere of Russian influence. This paradigm stands as an antithesis for the main slogan of Maidan – ‘Ukraine is Europe’, and Customs Union with Russian Federation is given as a preferable alternative to Association with the EU. In this way, the ‘pro-Russian’ message implies inevitable ‘anti-West’ ideological content. Framing becomes heavily editorialized, and as a consequence the coverage loses an image of ‘classical’ objective reporting:
At the beginning of his statement, the journalist accentuates that he utters his own view. This information is not backed up by expert’s evaluation, historical facts, or political quotes. The statement is formulated in question–answer mode, where the answer is presumed from the start and is inevitably given by the journalist. Probably, here is the power of ideologically biased media: being uncontested, the phrase is automatically perceived as the truth. It should be noted, however, that the previous knowledge and experience of the audience is also important. This rhetorical blend takes its roots from Soviet Cold War discourse. Exactly as Soviet political leaders and journalists blamed the USA for conspiracy against the USSR (Barghoorn, 2008), modern Russian TV channels create the renewed discourse of the ‘American threat’. The USA, according to the channels’ framing, appears to be ‘standing behind the curtain’ of the Ukrainian revolution, supporting it financially and politically and even ‘assigning’ roles in the Ukrainian government. Explicit journalistic framing is present to a certain degree in every newscast. It could be totally uncorroborated by any sources’ quotes, as in Russia-1’s reportage (8 December 2013):
If one remembers that since summer the American embassy in Kiev has been conducting training for bloggers within the ‘Tech-camp’ framework, if one counts up money, which Americans have always poured and continue to pour in Ukraine, to counterpoise it to Russia, Nuland’s words are not accidental.
By inferring knowledge with an impersonal sentence and enumerating facts, which are not unfolded in a further journalistic investigation, the journalist fails to provide a concrete source to confirm the ‘pouring’ of money. Finally, the framing is used to ‘counterpoise’ Ukraine to Russia and to indicate an ideological ‘load’ of the statement.
Officials are an integral part of media coverage, whether in domestic or international affairs (Livingston and Bennett, 2003), and the interface between journalists and elites is a key transmission point for spreading activation of frames (Entman, 2003). The type of reporting, context, and presence or absence of journalistic comments or counterframes (Entman, 2003) – all these factors influence the quote perception.
Journalists use amateur or hidden camera video recordings several times by way of presenting compromising evidence against Maidan leaders – Tyagnibok (Russia-1, 8 December 2013), Klitschko (Channel One, 15 December 2013), and Lutsenko (Russia-1, 19 January 2014). Politicians are not given the opportunity to react or respond to the charges, whereas the president, the prime minister, and pro-government deputies are always interviewed behind an official backdrop, in government offices or in parliament. This contrast points out the distance between the incumbent government, vested with power and reining in official domain, and the opposition, weaving intrigues, drinking alcohol, scolding, and so forth.
Showing speakers from the stage opens wider opportunities for interpretation than with a face-to-face interview, when journalists create a frame for the issue using a crafted formulation of questions. With that, the speech itself may be indistinctive behind the journalist’s comment:
After landing in Kiev, the Speaker of the Lithuanian Parliament – Loreta Graužinienė, jumped to Maidan to deliver an inflammatory speech. At first, in bad Ukrainian, then, ironically, switched to tolerable Russian. (Russia-1, 1 December 2013)
Or it may be encircled with journalistic commentary:
The Speaker of Lithuanian Parliament Loreta Graužinienė addressed the protesters on Euromaidan. ‘I am sure, that Ukraine will be in Europe […]’ ‘[…] The Speaker of Lithuanian Parliament
In the first case we see an explicit journalistic framing, expressing in words such as ‘jumped’, ‘inflammatory speech’, ‘bad Ukrainian’, and ‘tolerable Russian’. The journalist gives his own evaluations and intentionally ‘lowers’ the pathos of the politician’s public speech. As Hall ([1973] 1980) claimed, the potential of changing attitudes does not solely depend on the visual dimension, but lies in the mutual relationship between the image and its verbal framing. In the second case the framing is subtler, appearing in the journalist’s appraisal of the Eurointegration process.
If the USA is regarded by Russian channels as a ‘geopolitical rival’ on the division of spheres of influence in the world, the contradiction with Europe is shown in the value plane. Journalists of Russia-1 explicitly apply moral denunciation of European politicians to delegitimize their statements.
Mister Brock also has been to Kiev. The last time he arrived there from Moscow and announced, by mistake, that he had agreed with the Russian side to permit Ukraine’s entry into the European community. As argues Ukrainian website ‘Obozrevatel’ (Observer), before that he drank cognac. […] he came to be in a night club with girls. So, we can understand why a Europarliament representative decided to rejuvenate and dyed his hair into radical red … (Russia-1, 23 February 2014)
The visual background for this journalistic commentary, however, does not show Mr Brock dancing in a club. The viewer sees only a video from some press conference, where Mr Brock talks to reporters. His hair was chosen as a main focus of the reporting and as a starting point for carnivalization of this political figure.
It is worth noting that Russian politicians’ interviews appear throughout the coverage without contesting commentaries, and often without any journalistic analysis at all. Declarative verbs, preceding or following these quotes, are neutral – like ‘said’, or authoritative – like ‘stated’, ‘emphasized’, or ‘confirmed’. The quotes of President Putin on Russia-1 were accompanied by journalistic appraisals such as ‘chased/sharp-cut wording’ (1 December 2013; 23 March 2014), ‘dotted the i’s’ (24 November 2013), and ‘answered directly and without equivocation’ (2 February 2014).
The most frequently used delegitimizing tool is the demonstration of ‘perverted’ European values, comparing them to ‘sound’ traditional Russian values. In this way, the headline of one of the newscasts of Russia-1 (1 December 2013) was the following: ‘How For being in the same-sex marriage Westerwelle, the meeting with Klitschko brothers became a rather bright event. (Russia-1, 8 December 13)
In the same newscast, the journalist mentions that 10 years ago the Klitschko brothers participated in a candid photo session for a German gay journal (the photos are also demonstrated on the screen). This discourse line also joins a description of Maidan events on Channel One (19 January 2014):
… where else in the center of the European city can one find barricades of human height and barbed wire, alongside with
At the same time, it is emphasized that Russia and Ukraine have a similar cultural space: a single historical root of the two nations; a similar geographical, religious, and linguistic background. They have a lot more in common with each other than with ‘European values’. That is why they can understand each other and be the best political, cultural, and economic partners:
We are historically a single entity. We have a common Dnieper baptistery, one root, faith and language. (Russia-1, 24 November 2013)
Discussion
Discourse analysis of the Ukrainian crisis coverage by the central Russian TV channels indicated the implementation of a wide range of ideological discursive tools that resulted in a strong ideological bias. In order to legitimize ‘Our’ side and delegitimize ‘Theirs’, two powerful cultural-historical constructs from the Soviet times were restored. First is the Cold War opposition: ‘Russia as a stronghold of stability’ versus ‘USA, desirous for world domination.’ The USA was criticized for supporting the Ukrainian revolution with the aim of destroying the Russian–Ukrainian alliance. Second, the current discourse designed and elaborated the figure of the ‘Ukrainian Nazi’, and the threat of ultranationalist pogroms became the main justification for the annexation of Crimea. In addition, the ‘otherness’ of European values was demonstrated by multiple references to gay culture, which are unacceptable for a conservative Russian audience. Multiplicity and intertextuality discursive tools contributed to linking the discourse with government officials’ statements, creating the impression of a ubiquitous general story while keeping ‘the other’ out by marginalizing counter-discourses and carnivalizing pro-Maidan figures.
The TV newscasts analyzed in this study present a typical illustration of ideological discourse. However, the atypical factor is that most popular state TV channels use ideologically colored discourse to contribute to the political goals of the government in the 21st century, in a European country. Of course, the persuasive discourse itself, even so properly constructed, could not make the dramatic change in people’s minds. It is the combination of factors that matters, and first of all – the sterilizing of the Russian media market (Vartanova, 2012), where voices of dissent are hardly heard.
The limited volume of this study, however, allowed for reviewing only a small part of the coverage, so in order to draw more accurate conclusions further analysis is needed, primarily into the quantitative discourse evaluation. Reviewing the discourse, based on the later events – unrest in Donbass and the war in Eastern Ukraine – could add important features to the media’s depiction of the ‘Ukrainian crisis’ and add clarity and depth to the points discussed in this study. Another limitation of this study is the insufficient focus on historical and cultural patterns used in the media framing. The deeper analysis of collective identities, applied for building an ‘us/them’ dichotomy, should be conducted in future research.
Footnotes
Acknowledgements
The author wishes to extend her sincere gratitude to Dr Zohar Kampf for reviewing multiple drafts of this work and providing generous and precise remarks. She also wants to thank Shulamit El Baz who proofread the paper with great care and attention to detail.
Declaration of conflicting interests
The author(s) declared no potential conflicts of interest with respect to the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article.
Funding
The author(s) received no financial support for the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article.