Mediatization of war in the focus of scientific theories and analytical practices

Abstract

The review article presents contemporary theories on the mediatization of war and discursive practices of media analysis. The methodology for the selection of materials was based on international scientometric and bibliographic databases. The analysed content (more than 120 books and articles in the initial sample, 87 in the final sample) was selected on the Scopus, Web of Science and Google Scholar databases using keywords (mediatization; mediatization of war; Russian-Ukrainian war and media; digital war) and filters. The structure proposed by the authors integrates three problem areas: different stages of mediatization of war and conflict in relation to leading theories; interpretative methods of analysis and general results of the effectiveness of narrative and framing analysis methods; the most illustrative discussions within each of the proposed theories. The current Ukrainian issues have been included in each section and subsection of the proposed article. The main focus is on the academic material that deals with the mediatization of conflicts and crises and actively links well-known actors in communication work with the corresponding strategy of media impact and influence. The deployment of different phases of the mediatization of war in genesis is presented on the basis of the theory of А. Hoskins and B. O'Loughlin, with a separate exclusion of Digital War as an umbrella term, the interpretation of which goes beyond the traditional interdisciplinary framework. This latest scholarly content brings together articles on the revolutionary impact of technological developments on the course of war (drones, unmanned aerial vehicles, cyber weapons, precision munitions, etc. ), the effects of digital technologies in the new ecology of war (mobile, participatory, proxy warfare, digital violence, propaganda), and finally, the new logic of war, in which the oversaturation of media content leads to a decrease in global attention, empathic burnout, and, most controversially, to a systemic crisis of humanitarian knowledge and, despite its documentation and dissemination, to forgetting.