News framing of the Euromaidan protests in the hybrid regime and the liberal democracy: Comparison of Russian and UK news media

Abstract

This study examines and compares news framing of the protests in Ukraine from 30 November 2013 to 26 February 2014, encompassing three news sectors in the hybrid regime setting of Russia and the liberal democracy of the UK. Following Godefroidt et al.’s (2016) approach in their article in International Communication Gazette 78(8), the findings suggest that, while the Russian media used economic consequences and morality frames in the reporting of the protests reflecting the country’s political rhetoric on Ukraine, the British media preferred a human-interest frame and delivered a primarily one-sided coverage. The confrontational interpretations of the crisis by the Russian and UK media revealed an illiberal trend in both the hybrid regime and the liberal democracy.

News framing of the 2014–15 Ukraine conflict by the BBC and RT

“…The one-dimensional way in which RT framed the conflict, in line with existing studies (Lehtisaari, 2015;Nelson, 2019;Nygren et al, 2018), can be attributed to several factors, including Russian national peculiarities such as the hybrid political regime system where the mainstream media are under strong political control (Liu, 2020), financial subsidies (Slavtcheva-Petkova, 2018), clientelistic dependencies, journalists' role perception, selfcensorship and editorial gatekeeping (Oates, 2007(Oates, , 2013. Despite its commitment to being counter-hegemonic by offering various perspectives in opposition to the Anglo-Saxon media (Miazhevich, 2018), RT is seen by many as Putin's 'soft power tool', critically reporting on events associated with the West and the United States in particular (Rawnsley, 2015(Rawnsley, , 2021, or monopolised propaganda machine equipped with the clientelism in bringing Russian views to the world (see Miazhevich, 2016Miazhevich, , 2018.…”

“…The BBC was meticulous in its (re)construction of events, deliberating 'liberalism' by articulating Western policies on the conflict to hold Putin's Russia accountable. The constant accusation would fit in with the existing public perception of Putin as 'the culprit and aggressor' (Ojala and Pantti, 2017) and therefore with their editorial and journalistic narrative that had been prescribed since late 2013 (Liu, 2020). This does not suggest the illiberal activities from Russia including its instrumental use of RT are legitimate, but to raise awareness of the necessity to self-examine while questioning and taking into account perspectives of all sides, especially in the context of an incoherent state of Ukraine (Oskanian, 2014).…”

“…Among the most important expansion of international broadcasting has been the creation of RT in 2005 – previously known as Russia Today – aiming to, in the words of President Putin, ‘break the monopoly of the Anglo-Saxon media’ (Bidder, 2013), with financial support coming from the Federal Budget of the Russian Federation (Liu, 2020). Russia's actions in Ukraine since 2014 and the alleged interference in the 2016 US Presidential election have put RT in a place of ‘infertile credibility’ by many (Flew, 2018; Rawnsley, 2021).…”

“…In doing so, it compares the intricacies and variabilities of media's utilisation of news frames, and uncovers the potentially buried stories and data about the Ukraine conflict. This question regarding the media's attention will be measured by the quantities of coverage in each country, which may reveal the level of interest in the Ukraine conflict (see Liu, 2020). RQ2 Which frames have been dominantly adopted by UK and Russian digital media when making sense of the 2014-15 Ukraine conflict over time?…”

“…This question regarding the media's attention will be measured by the quantities of coverage in each country, which may reveal the level of interest in the Ukraine conflict (see Liu, 2020).…”