Analytics: Russia won informational war in Ukraine
Ukraine is losing ground
More than half of the sources cited by Ukrainian Internet new sites in their coverage of the Georgian conflict are Russian. The situation is similar with very few non-Russian sources in Ukraine television news. TV remains the main news source for most Ukrainians. Covering Georgia, Ukraine’s TV channels generally lacked background knowledge and balance. Meanwhile, virtually all significant Russian sources of information were used as military propaganda tools and took part in the informational campaign on behalf of the Russian authorities, either consciously or unwittingly. Ukraine, whose media landscape is dominated by the Russian mass media, has become part of that battlefield.
Analysts of the pro.mova company studied the coverage of the situation in Georgia on August 11 and 12 as provided by the most-popular Ukrainian Internet resources and several Ukrainian TV channels.
On August 11, the group monitored six of the most prominent Internet news resources (according to bigmir.net hit statistics) and three of the most prominent ones on August 12. The analysts counted the number of sources for reports about the situation in Georgia on August 11 from 00.00 to 23:59 and on August 12 — from 00.00 to 22:00.
The televisions news programs monitored by the analysts aired on the following stations: Inter, Novy Kanal, TRC «Ukraina» and the First National TV Channel. For purposes of analysis they chose the reports about the situation in Georgia on the prime time news programs on August 11 on the TV channels «Ukraina», the First National TV Channel and Novy Kanal and on daytime news for the channel Inter on August 12. The reports on TV channels were studied by applying the method of critical analysis of discourse, including analysis of new report structures, verbal and grammatical choices and the way they “tinted” the reports with ideology, changes in emphasis and reinforcing or refuting various public perceptions about the conflict. For both television and Internet news media reports, the sample was based on the principle of combining information accessibility and promptness.
Review of messages on the web sites unian.net, korrespondent.net and podrobnosti.ua demonstrated that, on average, more than one half of the sources cited concerning the situation in Georgia was Russian. On korrespondent.net (a resource with U.S. shareholders) Russian sources constituted 76% and 55% of all sources cited on August 11 and 12, respectively (although on August 12, the share of Western sources grew significantly from 15% to 32%). Podrobnosti.ua showed 65% and 58% of Russian sources during the same period, while Western sources constituted less than 2% for both days. Unian.net used Russian sources in 45% and 30% of its reports on August 11 and 12, respectively.
An overview of the four most popular Ukrainian news web sites on August 13 (from 00:00 to 18:00) demonstrated that the tendency for Ukrainian news web sites to predominantly refer to Russian sources of information was still in place.
For instance, 46% of all news items on the situation in Georgia on unian.net were based on Russian sources (lenta.ru was most often cited), while Georgian sources constituted less than 5%, Western – 14% and 17% were their own sources. Korrespondent.net – 58% Russian sources (most often cited were lenta.ru, RIA Novosti and Interfax). Podrobnosti.ua: Russian sources — 48%, Ukrainian sources — 46% (most often cited were UNIAN and RBC Ukraine). Russian news sources were in the minority only on the for-ua.com site.
Television
Analysis of TV reports showed a significant lack of context and expert opinion regarding the cause of the conflict (only Novy Kanal raised the oil issue as a reason for the conflict between Georgia and Russia), active use of Russian «sound bites» and definitions, as well misbalanced representation of the parties involved. One positive development was the fact that each TV channel attempted to find its own “unique voice” in their coverage.
During August 11-12 reports on both Ukrainian news web sites and TV channels lacked non-Russian sources. Virtually no reports presented comments from international experts, and no data from international humanitarian organizations on the number of victims was quoted. The history of confrontation between Russia and Georgia is ignored; all attention was concentrated on the very fact of war. Fact-checking should thus be one of the most important tasks. Is it really true that 1,600 people were killed in Tskhinvali? Or was the death toll higher at 2,000 dead? Were the Russian troops actually moving into the Georgian territory? In an environment where it is in the strategic interest of both parties –Russia as well as Georgia – not to provide all the information, but provide their own interpretation under guise of facts, the only reliable alternative sources were international news powerhouses like Reuters, AP or AFP.
In TV news reports, the most “active” positions were taken by Russia and the U.S. (rendered with the help of active verbs and active statements – «Russian troops have seized control over territory», «advanced», «attacked», «demand disarmament», «Medvedev demands from Georgia», «U.S. criticizes actions», «spreads critical comments»), Georgia and the European Union were positioned as passive parties («Georgia appealed for help», «EU calls parties for ceasefire»). Georgia was also portrayed as an aggressor. The latter message was primarily a reproduction from Russian media. Some Ukrainian media simply repeated this message by providing catchy quotes from Russian political leaders.
Inter distanced itself from defining who is to blame for the conflict, did not provide information about the number of victims, merely stating that nobody has an exact number yet. The first sentence of the news broadcast was «War in Caucasus». The phrase provides the scope and the territory, but omits naming the sides to the conflict. Similar statements avoid defining the subjects. The video footage was predominantly wide shots with almost no footage of destroyed buildings or large numbers of military vehicles.
Novy Kanal mentioned Russia and Georgia as parties to the conflict. It was the only TV channel that raised the issue of oil (but only in the context of the pipeline bombing). Novy did not mention anything about the number of victims. The channel portrayed Ukraine’s position concerning the Black Sea fleet as determined.
TRC «Ukraina» followed Russian sources and officials’ quotes and referred to the situation in Georgia as «the Georgian-Ossetia conflict». It also aired Ossetia’s accusations that Ukraine was selling arms to Georgia and quoted the FSB that «Georgian agents were preparing terrorist attacks on the territory of Russia». This TV channel demonstrated a protest event in Crimea that other channels did not mention with the following ideologically-laden sound bite: «A bloody massacre against Southern Ossetia was let loose by Saakashvili’s aggressive regime». This channel provided sound bites from ordinary people, demonstrated scenes of the refugees’ lives in a way that brought the audience emotionally closer to the events. The channel used the term «peacemakers» extensively, charging it with people’s emotions and grief (an emotionally-laden sound bite from a Ukrainian woman refugee: «My husband and daughter are peacemakers, they are staying in Tskhinvali»).
The First National TV Channel provided a definition of the conflict by quoting the UN Vice Secretary General who called it an «invasion of Russian troops into the territory of Georgia», as well as NATO representatives who stated that Russia’s actions are a «disrespect to Georgia’s territorial integrity»; it provided official data from different sides concerning the number of victims (Georgia, Russia, Ossetia) and declared that Ukraine is not going to fight with Russia over the Black Sea fleet.
With the help of certain linguistic tactics and journalist practices, each TV channel provided its own emphasis in coverage of the events in Georgia and formed corresponding ideological notions about the parties to the conflict, who is the aggressor and whose position in the negotiations can be considered as most balanced or meaningful. TRC «Ukraina» is more inclined to reproduce the rhetoric of Russian mass media, while Novy Kanal positions Georgia more as a victim and shows Russia rather bluntly as the side that started the hostilities. Expert opinions were not represented in any of the analyzed reports, neither were discussions of the conflict’s reasons; the conflict was defined within a regional scope only, without any discussion of its significance on the global level.
Two reports about the situation in Georgia from STB’s TV news programs on August 12 were analyzed.
The first report, entitled «Forced to peace», provided the positions on conflict resolution of three countries: first Russia, then Georgia, then Ukraine. Russia’s position was reinforced by a harsh statement made by Sergei Lavrov, the Minister of Foreign Affairs (given as a sound bite) that Russia has no intentions of talking to Saakashvili, because he «committed a crime against citizens of Russian Federation» and by a popular quote by Medvedev about «forcing Georgia to peace». Georgia’s position was presented as being the weak side in the confrontation. By referring to the Russian troops on the territory of Southern Ossetia and Abkhazia as «occupational», Saakashvili publicly acknowledged the fact that Georgia’s territory was occupied, indirectly positioning him as both the president of the entire country and in the role of a victim. Ukraine was positioned as one of the «weak» countries that is unable to influence international conflicts. The report stated: “the presidents of these countries [Poland, Ukraine and the Baltic States] are coming to Georgia only to learn the lessons of war”.
The very name of the report, «Forced to peace», echoed Medvedev’s famous quote and facilitated the notion that it was Russia who stopped the aggressor. The report also stated that «Russia has won the war» and this statement was reinforced with a reference to the commonsense notion that «nobody has any doubts».
The second report in the same STB news broadcast, entitled «Ukraine is being dragged into conflict,» was about the reaction of Ukrainian political circles to the armed conflict in Georgia and repeated the insinuation from the first report that Ukraine’s position is weak: Ukraine is incapable of being an equal player in situations of conflict. Several grammatical and lexical means were used to reinforce this message: passive forms of verbs («Ukraine is being dragged»), the statement that Ukrainian politicians, including the Prime-Minister have not commented on the situation in Georgia and a small general comment by Vice Prime Minister Olexander Turchynov who called for «the conflict to be resolved peacefully». Generally, the report’s message was that the Ukrainian political elite is too weak and is not ready to respond to a crisis connected with Russian influence.
In general, Western sources – although much more neutral and professional – did not fill the vacuum of sources in the media landscape. This may be the result of the traditional reliance on Russian informational infrastructure. It may also be attributable to the fact that many people find translating from Russian to be much easier than translating from English. Whatever the case, more professional and balanced Western sources were secondary compared to the propaganda-laden messages from Russia.
This is not the first time that such a situation has emerged. It is the return — in a much worse and larger-scale form — of the situation with coverage of the NATO summit in Bucharest when Ukrainian media were copycatting the opinions of Russian news sources and other similar cases.
Finally, the analysis suggests that even if different sources of “propaganda” were cited and the reports were vastly different, this would only serve to polarize Ukrainians even more, by deepening the values-based divisions between pro-Western and pro-Russian citizens eventually resulting in greater disparity not only in the media landscape, but in real life.
Victoria Bryndza, head of the analytical group, pro.mova
Anastasia Bezverkha, post-graduate student of Institute for Political and Ethno-National Studies, National Academy of Sciences of Ukraine
Translated by Maria Dmitrieva
pro.mova is a communications consulting company based in Ukraine. It provides communication consultancy and strategy development services for the private, non-governmental and governmental sectors. pro.mova operates several not-for-profit projects, including NATO awareness in Ukraine and pro bono communication consulting for the Univ Group, an independent think tank focused on developing a municipal strategy for the city of Lviv.
Comments
No comments yet.
Sorry, the comment form is closed at this time.