Differentiated Visibilities: RT Arabic’s Narration of Russia’s Role in the Syrian War (original) (raw)
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This article is concerned with exploring conflicting media positions as reflected in the discursive patterns of news headlines and leads. Using Halliday’s transitivity analysis, this study examines how the Russian Military Intervention in the Syrian Civil War was socially, discursively and linguistically represented in the CNN and RT coverage of the event. The analysis examines the process of news making, role of ideology, and types of relationships between the news agencies and the political institutions in the United States and Russia. The aim is to show the discursive power of news agencies in creating different realities of the same event through language use. Results indicate that media are a political actor in the dissemination of both Russian and American views on the Syrian conflict. Although RT and CNN write about the same issue, the language choices made and underlying ideologies are different. The conflicting ideologies of both CNN and RT were highlighted by the use of positive self-presentation and negative other-presentation in order to support self’s ideological positions and distort other’s political stances.
This article is concerned with exploring conflicting media positions as reflected in the discursive patterns of news headlines and leads. Using HALLIDAY " s transitivity analysis, this study examines how the Russian Military Intervention in the Syrian Civil War was socially, discursively and linguistically represented in the CNN and RT coverage of the event. The analysis examines the process of news making, role of ideology, and types of relationships between the news agencies and the political institutions in the United States and Russia. The aim is to show the discursive power of news agencies in creating different realities of the same event through language use. Results indicate that media area political actor in the dissemination of both Russian and American views on the Syrian conflict. Although RT and CNN write about the same issue, the language choices made and underlying ideologies are different. The conflicting ideologies of both CNN and RT were highlighted by the use of positive self-presentation and negative other-presentation in order to support self " s ideological positions and distort other " s political stances.
The Russian Media as a Promoter of Manipulative Approaches: The Case of the Syrian Civil War
Journal of the Middle East and Africa, 2019
The content of mass information in any society is closely linked to the patterns of its political development. A typical example of this concerns the modern Russian media, which have been influenced particularly by their embeddedness with the authorities. Indeed, the Russian media have served as the mouthpiece of the country’s political leaders, and this fact has left a significant imprint on media coverage. To understand the symbiotic relationship between Russian political leaders and media, this article focuses on the Syrian Civil War, which is currently one of the most important issues on the international political agenda. The Russian government’s role in the conflict over the last several years has affected the Russian media’s tremendous interest in this topic. Nonetheless, Moscow’s participation in the war was determined uniquely by how the communication sphere related the conflict to its audience so that its involvement in the Syrian imbroglio was not an objective reflection of reality. Guided by the political interests of the authorities, the Russian media created an emotionally oriented story, which intended to advance an extremely positive interpretation of Russia’s role in this conflict in the minds of the audience. Therefore, in terms of propaganda, these media acted not as “pure” promoters of the state’s will, but rather as its “interpreters.” This study highlights how leading Russian publications approach this agenda and the consequences this fact has for the Kremlin’s political priorities. The authors come to a definite conclusion regarding Russian media’s unconditional dependence on the political priorities of modern Russian society. It was crucial for the Kremlin that the media present a positive view of Moscow’s involvement in the conflict given that Russia’s military presence in Syria caused a very controversial reaction throughout the world and led to increased tensions and contentious disputation between Russia and many Western countries. Therefore, the Kremlin needed to justify its policies and did so through manipulating the Russian public by means of a large-scale propaganda campaign conducted through the Russian media. This phenomenon is pivotal to understand not only the case of Russia’s involvement in Syria but also contemporary international media development. KEYWORDS: ISIS, political and media bias, Russia, Syria, terrorism
The Framing of Russian Military Involvement in the Syrian Civil War on Sputnik Media
2020
The legitimacy of a country’s foreign policy is often determined by how the media report on the country’s political activity outside that country. The country's involvement in a conflict or war and the reason for engaging needs to be communicated to the public globally with a mediaframing strategically. This article aims to explore the framing of the Russian military's involvement in the Syrian civil war by the online media outlet Sputnik. The researchers employed a qualitative content analysis method on 238 articles published by Sputnik between February and September 2016. During this period Russia and the United States, as two external powers involved in the Syrian civil war, agreed on a ceasefire. This development represented a strategic moment for Russia to communicate the activities of its military in Syria by using a framing strategy in Sputnik. This research revealed that Sputnik actively used framing to legitimize the Russian military's involvement in the Syrian ...
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'Better one tiger than ten thousand rabid rats': Russian media coverage of the Syrian conflict
International Politics, 2014
The West and Russia have been bitterly divided over the conflict in Syria. Whereas Western powers and their Arab allies have backed the opposition and sought the toppling of the Assad regime, Russia has been seen to support the Syrian leader and thwart diplomatic initiatives at the United Nations. In order to better understand what underpins these diametrically opposed positions, this article presents the findings of a detailed analysis of Russian media coverage of the conflict. Focusing on three prominent Russian newspapers and comparing them with three Western counterparts, particular emphasis is placed on their reporting of regime violence, the nature and actions of the opposition, and Russia’s own role in the conflict. In so doing, a clear picture emerges of how starkly different the Syrian conflict appears to a Russian audience.
Reflections of Western leaders in the Russian media during the Syrian Crisis
Reflections of Western leaders in the Russian media during the Syrian Crisis, 2016
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The Press & Pressure: A critical discourse analysis of media narratives in the Syrian crisis
The popular concept that journalism is a moderating check on an aggressive state – one that operates in a world dictated by Realism’s demands for power and survival – is solace both for society and individual journalists who believe in the peaceful calling of the profession and the power of the Fourth Estate. But what happens when data and a discursive analysis of news organizations indicates that rather than favoring diplomatic solutions and peaceful resolutions, journalism is both fueling the flames of fear and fostering aggressive military postures that may favor confrontational nationalist rather that peaceful internationalist outcomes? This paper analyzes news and opinion production in both the Chinese and American press to conclude that in the case of the on-going conflict in Syria, the states themselves, while in conflict on the promotion of policies that reflect either the “Responsibility to Protect” (United States) or that of “Sovereignty” (China), are more aligned with diplomatic resolution than the press.
Coverage of the Middle East: Comparative Analysis of Russia’s intervention in Syria
This research attempts to discuss, analyze and designate the ways in which the American and European press approach the Middle East issues and the international policy that relates to them. It focuses on the coverage of two of the most prestigious newspapers of the British and American press – the Independent and the New York Times, respectively – and conducts a comparative analysis of their approach to relevant issues of the Middle East and foreign policy. Russia’s military intervention in Syria, in October 2015, has been selected as the case of study. The newspapers’ reporting on the first week of the developments has been examined according to parameters that regard the sufficiency of the coverage, the reliability and accuracy of the news reported, the explanation and analysis of it and the level of propaganda that consists their reportage – in order to understand the points where their coverage resembles and differs. The analysis of the coverage that included both news and opinion articles, focused on the framing of the news, the meaning of the titles and subtitles, the usage of the sources and the editing style of the articles to perceive the way each newspaper reported the news. The findings of the research suggest that American and European press converge in the way they report the Middle East issues regarding the sufficiency of the reporting and the analysis and explanation of the news, they do diverge though when it comes to the reliability of their coverage, as well as in the extent of the bias that describes their reporting. Further research is needed, though, in order to reach a safe conclusion about the American and European press’s coverage of the Middle East issues.
Cambridge Journal of Eurasian Studies, 2017
Symbols are primarily used by diplomatic actors to better project the core ideas behind certain political initiatives. Author defines symbolic violence as a practice, manifested in deliberate action of a given diplomatic actor to damage his adversary's reputation, status and dignity through a certain set of actions, such as linguistic violence (e.g., insult, intimidation), disobeying diplomatic tact and so forth. This study aims to examine whether it is possible to establish how a change in practice (in the example of Russia-Turkey relations before and after the downing of the Russian fighter plane Su-24) originates, utilising an alternative practice-theoretical toolkit-contradictory framing of the past. To achieve this, the author examines what potentially might cause a change in practice in the Russia-Turkish case and to what extent the potential of social media can be harnessed by governments to shape public opinion and influence diplomatic actors' international reputation. The methodology employed was based on previous practice and framing studies that have perfected the tools necessary for the detection and analysis of frames. In this research, these tools were employed on 140-character-long tweets. Identifying general themes was achieved through thematic analysis, the method for identifying, analyzing and reporting on patterns, or themes, within data corpus. The paper mentions that both Russia and Turkey attempted to narrate each other's behaviour through framing one another on Twitter focusing on the legitimacy and morality of each other's policies to limit the opponent's ability to carry out the latter's foreign political prerogatives. Moreover, as the Twitter analysis of the Russian and Turkish framing of one another showed, governments can and do harness the potential of using images and words as the weapons of symbolic violence when they attempt to impose their own narration on a given event or situation. Symbolic domination […] is something you absorb like air, something you don't feel pressured by; it is everywhere and nowhere, and to escape from that is very difficult […] with the mechanism of symbolic violence, domination tends to take the form of a more effective, and in this sense more brutal, means of oppression […] the violence has become soft, invisible. 1