Visual narratives of global politics in the digital age: an introduction

Crilley, Rhys; Manor, Ilan; Bjola, Corneliu

doi:10.1080/09557571.2020.1813465

Cited by 24 publications

(8 citation statements)

References 51 publications

Supporting

Mentioning

Contrasting

Order By: Relevance

“…Applying a compositional analysis on visual images, the research examines the interaction of light, colour, shots, frames and spatial organisation in meaning-making (Rose, 2016). To further elicit the visual narratives, the study analyses the intertextuality of ‘linguistic, aural and musical signifiers’ in conveying a significant political message and generating coherent strategic narratives (Crilley et al, 2020).…”

Section: Methods and Data: Analysing Rt’s Identity Narratives In The ...mentioning

confidence: 99%

Russia’s strategic communication during the Ukraine crisis (2013–2014): Victims, hypocrites, and radicals

Zhang

Ting

2023

Discourse & Communication

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

The article retrospectively looks at Russia’s strategic communication during the Ukraine crisis (2013–2014) in light of the ongoing Russian-Ukraine conflicts. Russia’s strategic communication campaign, especially the sophisticated use of state-sponsored international broadcaster-Russia Today (RT)-has been proven to raise sympathy, distract attention and delay effective reactions from the Ukranian government and NATO. RT’s strategic mediatisation of the Ukraine crisis not only fermented a favourable environment for Russia’s annexation of Crimea but set up the meta-narratives and operational framework for the subsequent influence operation practiced by the Russian government during the current Russo-Ukraine war. The article adopts a multimodal discourse analysis to elicit RT’s identity narratives about three main actors during the Ukraine crisis: Russia, the West, and Ukraine. By analysing RT’s YouTube audio-visual representation of the Ukraine crisis, the research finds that RT has applied a victimisation strategy to legitimise Russia’s military intervention in the Annexation of Crimea as a defencive counterattack. The West is accused of provoking a divide between Russia and Ukraine and being an unreliable partner and hypocritical norm-upholder. The Ukrainian components are dichotomously represented. While the pro-Eu protestors and the interim government are framed in line with violence, disorder, and neo-Nazism, the ejected pro-Russian Yanukovych government is legitimised as a democratically elected government, and its policy is aggressively crushed by the pro-Eu protestors. The empirical research suggests that RT’s discursive construction of the Ukraine crisis is built on a divisive script between a victimised pro-Russia club and an aggressive pro-EU camp. By reflecting upon RT’s strategic mediatisation of the Ukraine crisis, the paper seeks to illuminate the historical continuance and variation of Russia’s strategic communication in the post-cold war era. It thus aims to make a meaningful addition to the study of Russian propaganda and shed historical insights to make sense of Russia’s ever-intensifying information campaign during the ongoing Russo-Ukraine War.

show abstract

Section: Methods and Data: Analysing Rt’s Identity Narratives In The ...mentioning

confidence: 99%

Russia’s strategic communication during the Ukraine crisis (2013–2014): Victims, hypocrites, and radicals

Zhang

Ting

2023

Discourse & Communication

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

show abstract

“…Narratives can appear both through traditional media in text, sound, and visual format, and overwhelmingly through digital and social media. Visual narratives are also very important in the digital age, especially when it comes to a country's image and foreign policy where social media is used as a visual platform (Crilley, Manor & Bjola, 2020). These visual narratives can be photographs, maps, public relations material, images from popular culture, and films.…”

Section: The Meaning Of Narrativesmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…In social media, visual narratives have a large scope, as these forms of media have influenced radical changes in diplomatic communication and public diplomacy (Bjola, Cassidy & Manor 2019). In important international meetings and forums, the use of social media as a visual platform strengthens the importance of the event; it is also an opportunity, however, for propaganda and disinformation (Crilley, Manor & Bjola, 2020). In these forums, state actors often use different narratives about events from the past with the intention of benefiting the minds and hearts of other political actors, and aware that their words will also receive media attention.…”

Section: The Meaning Of Narrativesmentioning

confidence: 99%

Narratives of Public Diplomacy in the post-Truth Era: The decline of Soft Power

Saliu

2023

Communication & Society

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

This article aims to build a better understanding of today’s communicative changes of public diplomacy in the post-truth era. Today, our communication environment has changed compared to decades ago: about 5 billion people communicate online and compete among themselves through their social media narratives, which are the main platform for the distribution of fake news in the post-truth era. The question posed here is: what are the winning narratives in the complex global environment of public diplomacy? Through problematizing review, this article analyses the sources of soft power which were described at the end of the Cold War, and which remain effective even in today’s communication environment. Also, the purpose and influence of public diplomacy has been problematized, analysing how to influence foreign government by influencing its citizens. The paper concludes that the values of soft power described three decades ago only have limited and specific effects on non-European publics, but not on European ones. Additionally, it is impossible to influence European governments by influencing their publics through public diplomacy because the context has changed and the values of soft power in these countries no longer have the former distinctive gap between them.

show abstract

“…Researchers in this field share the view that narratives are complex, sense-making constructs used to gain legitimacy and trigger action and participation in IR (Bruner, 1991). Comprehensive reviews of the research on narratives in IR (see Crilley et al, 2020; Hagström and Gustafsson, 2019) argue that narratives are ‘integral to important contemporary issues such as security, war, justice, migration, inequality, race and gender, to name a few’ (Crilley et al, 2020: 631). Theoretical debates on narratives in IR – and in political science in general – are multiple and diverse.…”

Section: Theoretical Framework: Strategic Narrative and Its Efficiencymentioning

confidence: 99%

What makes strategic narrative efficient: Ukraine on Russian e-news platforms

Chaban¹,

Zhabotynska²,

Knodt³

2023

Cooperation and Conflict

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

Contributing to the ‘narrative turn’ in International Relations and offering an answer to the question ‘What makes a strategic narrative efficient?’, this article adds to the methodological theorization of the formation and projection phases of the narrative’s lifecycle. We suggest that the impact of the constructed image in the narrative can be reinforced by the interplay of at least three projection properties: (1) content accentuation and priming, through iterations; (2) content contextualization, through historical and cultural resonance with the consumers’ memories; and (3) content verbalization, through narrative tactics that evoke a range of the consumers’ involved attitudes to the framed image. These properties, being intrinsic ingredients of the projected content, tend to enhance emotions. In our work, they get traction in the antagonistic narrative tailored by the Russian propaganda to depict Ukraine orientated towards the European Union (EU). The empirical case study analyses articles published on the Russian e-news platforms portraying the EU granting Ukrainians visa-free travel to the Schengen area in 2017, a milestone in Ukraine–EU relations. We define Russia’s narrative, created in reaction to this event, as antagonistic and consider it to be a precursor of the aggressive narrative crafted/employed by Russia to justify its 2022 military assault on Ukraine’s sovereignty.

show abstract

Visual narratives of global politics in the digital age: an introduction

Cited by 24 publications

References 51 publications

Russia’s strategic communication during the Ukraine crisis (2013–2014): Victims, hypocrites, and radicals

Russia’s strategic communication during the Ukraine crisis (2013–2014): Victims, hypocrites, and radicals

Narratives of Public Diplomacy in the post-Truth Era: The decline of Soft Power

What makes strategic narrative efficient: Ukraine on Russian e-news platforms

Contact Info

Product

Resources

About