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1.5

UKRAINIAN ISSUES IN ENGLISH-LANGUAGE PERIODICALS OF CANADA AND USА (2014—2019)

S.YE. PROKOPENKO 1
https://orcid.org/0000-0002-4963-7497
YU.O. IRIOGLU 1
https://orcid.org/0000-0003-3324-7598
1 Zaporizhzhia National University, Ukraine

Nauka naukozn. 2022, 4(118): 84–105
https://doi.org/10.15407/sofs2022.04.084

Section: Vital  Problems  of  Modern  Science
Language: Ukrainian
Abstract: The article contains a dynamic analysis of the Ukrainian topics coverage in the English-language space of Canada and USA in 2014–2019. A brief characterization of the current theoretical developments pertaining to issues of the mass media role in political processes and the mass media significance as sources of history research is given. A review of professional analytical studies devoted to the coverage of Russian-Ukrainian conflict is made. A comprehensive content characterization of the mass media selected for analysis could be given by determining peak estimates of thematic messages and their generation, and identifying key narratives. The author was the first to analyze the content of five largest English-language editions of Canada and USA («Globe and Mail», «Toronto Star», «National Post», «New York Times», «The Wall Street Journal») in 2014–2019 and explore the dynamics of occurrences of Ukrainian issues and their presentation specifics. The study builds on conventional methods of scientific and source-based analysis, sample textual and clausual analysis of sources using mathematical and statistical methods. Results of this context and frequency analysis showed that the interest to Ukrainian issues in Canadian and American mass media was gradually declining in the period following the events of 2014, which caused a reduction in the number of mentions about Ukraine in the material published in periodicals of these countries. As regards the Canadian media space, 2018 and 2019 gave a lot of newsbreaks for publications about Ukraine. But while in 2014 Ukrainian events used to be in focus as they referred to the international significance of the conflict in the country’s East, at the end of the studied period Ukraine was being turned, to an increasingly larger extent, into a tool for political processes in Canada and USA, with the context of Russian aggression becoming marginal. A similar trend occurred in the informational space of USA: issues of Russian aggression marginalized, with Ukraine turning from a side in the conflict into a subject of international agreements, first and foremost a tool for implementing foreign policy of USA. It is emphasized that it was the mix of three factors – Russian propaganda, weak information presence of Ukraine in the international information space, and trends to show Ukraine as a politically dependent actor in a major part of the Western media – created the real threat of rooting the idea of Ukraine as a failed state in the international community’s mind in the years just before the full-scale Russian aggression.

Keywords: mass media, information space, Ukrainian issues, English-language periodical, mention about Ukraine, newsbreaks, image of Ukraine, Russian aggression.

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