This article discusses the results of verbal framing analysis of the conflict in news published on Telegram channels by the Russian news agency RIA Novosti (RIAN) and the Ukrainian news agency ...(UNIAN) during the Russian invasion of Ukraine in 2022. The analysis, using the text mining method, shows differences between how a more authoritarian and more competitive regime uses social media to construct strategic narratives. RIAN benefits from a technical frame that has not changed throughout the war although the reality on the ground has been evolving dramatically. It focuses on military issues and international rivalry (e.g. sanctions) because the Kremlin focuses on it. UNIAN, on the other hand, uses the moralizing frame of conflict which is more flexible and has been developed in response to changes on the ground – from discussions about the possibility of the invasion to humanitarian tragedy to war crimes, and to creating a more essentialized image of the enemy (‘rashists’).
This study is situated within corpus-based discourse analysis and provides a critical discussion on China in the Russian mainstream media RIA Novosti during the COVID-19 epidemic. The paper analyzes ...RIA Novosti’s reports on China during the pandemic COVID-19. The authors use Fairclough’s Three-Dimensional Model to explore the discourse representations of RIA Novosti’s reports on China during the epidemic and thus uncover the attitudes and stances of the Russian media and social cognition. The authors come to conclusion that RIA Novosti shows great concern about China during the pandemic by focusing on the epidemic itself and its impact. Additionally, Russian reports reflect the stages of China’s fight against the pandemic objectively, truthfully, and comprehensively. RIA Novosti holds a positive attitude towards China’s efforts to fight the epidemic. The study broadens the perspective of academic study of COVID-19 pandemic coverage in China from foreign media and enriches empirical research in Russian.
The complexity of the Yugoslav communist government’s attitude towards the Catholic Church under the creation of a new socialist socio-political system is the topic that will be discussed in this ...paper based on the analysis of the press’s attitude towards the Catholic Church in the period from 1952 to 1970. Based on the quantitative-qualitative analysis of articles published in the Vinkovci newspaper Novosti in the selected period, we will show the frequency of occurrence results and the context in which the selected keywords for the analysis of the digital version of the newspaper appeared (Catholic Church, priests, religion/religiosity, clergy/clericalism, church, faith, Christianity). Thus, the analysis of the weekly Novosti aims to determine whether we can observe certain changes in the attitude of the press towards the Catholic Church over nineteen years, during which several events took place to question Yugoslavia’s overall attitude towards the Catholic Church (from the severance of diplomatic relations between the Holy See and Yugoslavia, the signing of the Protocol, all the way to the re-establishment of diplomatic relations).
The article is devoted to the analysis of the propagandistic and disinformative activities of the ,,Novosti” Press Agency (NPA) in the African countries in the 1960s-1980s. The research is based ...mainly on archival materials that reveal the strategy and tactics of the main Soviet tool of the information warfare, the close relationship of this ,,public” organization with the CC CPSU and KGB. The main tasks of the NPA in Africa were: the creation of the positive image of the USSR as of the expresser and protector of the former colonial countries‟ interests, the informational support of the states of ,,socialist orientation”, anti-Western propaganda, the publication of the beneficial materials on behalf of the local authors in the African mass media. In conclusion, there is a finding that the NPA was an important element of the state party machine and executed the political order of its leadership not disdaining the methods that are more suitable for the state security services.
This book investigates the reportage of the 2004 Beslan hostage-taking published by three very different Russian-language websites: RIA-Novosti, Kavkazcenter, and Caucasian Knot, tracking the ways in ...which these three sites constructed six different reports in response to what happened at Beslan, even as events were still taking place. By covering both Russian and English reports, the book also considers ways in which translation impacts on the reconstruction of these narratives. Working from the premises that narratives constitute reality and are fundamental to human agency, the book investigates material never before subjected to scholarly analysis in this depth, contributing to an understanding of Beslan in terms of its significance for Russia’s nation building, civil society and responses to terrorism. The book also reflects on the role of narratives in perpetuating or dissolving violent political conflict, a discussion relevant not just for Russia, but for other, seemingly intractable, conflicts across the world.This book is the first, sustained close reading of Russian-language online media accounts of the 2004 Beslan school siege, now seen as a vital turning point in Russia’s approach to terrorism and in the Putin/Medvedev presidencies.
The article deals with the image of Istria during the war in Croatia in the three leading Belgrade dailies: Politika (Politics), Borba (Struggle), and Večernje novosti (Evening News). Politika was ...the largest Serbian newspaper with a venerable tradition. As such, it was taken over by the regime of Slobodan Milošević and abused for its ends. Borba was the paper of the Communist Party of Yugoslavia. After its disintegration, it became independent until November 1994, when it, too, was put under Milošević’s control. Večernje novosti was an evening paper with a large circulation but limited intellectual aspirations. The differences in reporting about Istria in these three newspapers were due to the differences between the newspapers themselves. Politika was read by the intellectual and political elite with broad interests. This is why the largest number of articles on Istria appeared there (141). Borba used to be a Party paper, but was of good quality. It also had a number of correspondents throughout the country and abroad. Therefore it could also report extensively on Istria: 108 such articles and notes appeared between May 1991 and August 1995. Večernje novosti published only 46 items, their number and quality matching its parochial and nationalist outlook. The main Istria-related topics dealt with in the three newspapers were the withdrawal of the Yugoslav army from the peninsula, the border problem, the
status of the Italian and Serbian minorities, internal politics, Croatia’s relations with Slovenia and Italy and, in that context, the revision of the Treaty of Osimo. A certain number of articles dealt with economic, social or cultural matters, whereas some articles were reprinted or translated from other Croatian and foreign newspapers. Reporting on the above-mentioned topics was in most cases objective. The probable reasons for this were the facts that Istria remained outside of the theatre of military operations, that her leading political party was in constant opposition to the Croatian government that was routinely denigrated in the Serbian press, that Serbian powers-that-be had no direct interest in it (which was not the case in some other parts of Croatia and Bosnia-Herzegovina) and, last but not least, the professionalism of the journalists who wrote the articles.Although reporting on Istria was constant and mostly objective, it did not cover all segments of life so as to enable the Serbian reader to acquire a comprehensive picture of the peninsula’s development during this period.