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Domestication of International Conflicts in Ukrainian TV Coverage: Overlapping Between Political and Media Discourses

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UNIVERSITAT AUTÒNOMA DE BARCELONA Jointly with National University of “Kyiv-Mohyla Academy” Departament de Comunicació Audiovisual i Publicitat Continguts de Comunicació a l'Era Digital Doctoral Thesis Domestication of international conflicts in Ukrainian TV coverage: overlapping between political and media discourses By Daria Taradai Supervisors: PhD. Yevhen Fedсhenko, National University of Kyiv-Mohyla Academy PhD. Virginia Luzón, Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona 2 Acknowledgments The author thankfully acknowledges the financial support of the Rinat Akhmetov’s Foundation for Development of Ukraine provided to the joint PhD program of the Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona and National University of Kyiv-Mohyla Academy. The author is grateful for the support and help to Professor Volodymyr Kulyk (Ukraine) and PhD Laura Vanderberg (USA). 3 TABLE OF CONTENTS Introduction……………………………………………………………………………….6 Chapter 1. Theoretical framework ……………………………………………………...11 1.1. Domestication as an element of glocalization 11 1.2. Globalization and media 15 1.3. News domestication 18 1.4. Post-Cold War frame: search for a new focus 21 1.4.1. Threats of domestication 27 1.5. Media effects and the role of the international news 28 1.6. Domestication of news: from social representations to political discourse 35 1.6.1. Social representations as a clue for news domestication 35 1.6.2. Political discourse as a clue for news domestication 39 1.7. Media and political discourses 43 1.8. Critical Discourse Analysis of media and political texts 46 1.9. Media coverage of the war 49 Chapter 2. Methodology…………………………………………………………………56 2.1. Choice of the medium 56 2.2 News selection 58 2.3 Stages of the news analysis 59 2.4 Content analysis of the news 60 2.5 Discourse analysis of the news 66 2.6 Textual analysis 69 2.6.1 The structure of the news material 69 2.6.2 Instruments of the textual analysis 71 2.6.3 Peculiarities of the verbs 75 2.6.4 Speakers in the news 76 2.6.5 Metaphors 78 2.6.6 Media frames as a way to shape reality 79 2.7 Analysis of news production 80 2.8 Political discourse analysis 82 2.9 Data Gathering 85 4 2.9.1. Instruments of the analysis 89 2.10. Delimitations 93 2.11. Limitations 95 Chapter 3.The context of the research…………………………………………………..96 3.1. The 2008 South Ossetia war and its view from Ukraine 96 3.1.1. The South Ossetia war 100 3.1.2. Russia and Georgia: collision of the narratives 103 3.1.3. Media coverage of the South Ossetia war 106 3.1.4. Consequences of the war and present situation 109 3.1.5. Georgia, Russia and the West 109 3.1.6. Internal conflict in Georgia 113 3.1.7. Parallels with Ukraine and Moldova 114 3.2. Media and politics in Ukraine before 2008: overview 116 3.2.1. Italianization of Ukrainian media sphere 120 3.3. Media sphere in 2008 121 3.4. Political situation in Ukraine in 2008 122 3.4.1. Ukrainian-Russian relations in 2008 122 3.4.2. Ukrainian-Georgian relations in 2008 125 3.4.3. European and Euro-Atlantic integration 126 3.4.4. Different views on Ukrainian foreign policy 128 3.4.5. Ukrainian reaction towards the 2008 South Ossetia war 129 3.4.6. Public opinion on the 2008 South Ossetia war in Ukraine 131 3.5. Researched TV channels 131 3.5.1. Inter: the largest coverage 132 3.5.2. “1+1”: news for Barbos 134 3.5.3. “STB” channel: special point of view 134 Chapter 4. Media analysis……………………………………………………………….136 4.1. “STB” channel 136 4.1.1 Ukrainian speakers 139 4.1.2. Textual analysis 140 4.2.3. Conclusions 149 4.2. Inter channel 151 5 4.2.1. Ukrainian speakers 155 4.2.2. Textual Analysis 156 4.2.3. Conclusions 165 4.3. “1+1” channel 168 4.3.1. Ukrainian speakers 170 4.3.2. Textual analysis 171 4.3.3. Conclusions 182 4.4. Media discourse on the 2008 South Ossetia war 185 Chapter 5. Analysis of political discourse……………………………………………….189 5.1. Messages of President Viktor Yushchenko 189 5.2. Messages of the Government headed by Y. Tymoshenko 196 5.3. Messages of the Parliament 202 5.4. Messages of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs 204 5.5. Messages of the Ministry of Defense 207 5.6. Messages of the Council of National Security and Defense 208 5.7. Messages of the Party of Regions 209 5.8. Messages of the Our Ukraine – People’s Self-Defense Bloc (NUNS) 215 5.9. Messages of the Communist Party 219 5.10. Messages of the Lytvyn Bloc 224 5.11. Political discourse on the 2008 South Ossetia war 226 Chapter 6. Conclusions…………………………………………………………………..235 6.1. News domestication as substitution 236 6.2. “STB” and “1+1”: from pro-Ukrainian perspective 237 6.3. Inter channel: from pro-Russian position in Ukraine 238 6.4. Lack of pluralism 239 6.5. No floor to the Prime Minister 240 6.6. “Normality” of the social and cultural split in Ukraine 241 6.7. The factor of Russia 242 List of References…………………………………………………………………………248 6 Introduction In a globalized post-Cold War world, journalists try to domesticate foreign news using connections familiar to the audience (social representations) or clues that can be borrowed from political discourse about similar issues. Hence, news may potentially become both the mouthpiece of political propaganda and a source of trustworthy information about the world. This assumption can be illustrated with the example of the 2008 South Ossetia war. This conflict was not only one of the most covered international events in Ukraine, but it also caused heated debates among politicians regarding Ukrainian foreign policy and relationships between key political players. The 2008 South Ossetia war involved two countries that are Ukraine’s strategic partners: Russia and Georgia. Each strategic partner represents a fundamentally different direction in Ukrainian foreign policy: Russia as an orientation to the East and Georgia as an orientation to the West and the path to European and Euro-Atlantic integration. These considerations have produced extremely heated political debates. Since 1991, no other conflict has been as close and as symbolic to Ukraine as the 2008 South Ossetia war. As with other international events, this war was domesticated by Ukrainian journalists (for example, through the idea that Ukraine could be the next “victim” of Russia or about the urgent necessity for Ukraine and Georgia to join NATO because of Russia’s threat, etc.) and heated debates made this domestication even more interesting and attractive to the audience. Politicians were discussing this conflict at length, thereby creating possible ideas for journalists. On the basis of the above-mentioned, the research questions of this study are: Ø Was the 2008 South Ossetia war domesticated in Ukrainian TV news? In what way? Ø What was the political discourse about Ukraine in the context of the 2008 South Ossetia war? Ø What was the overlap between political elite’s discourse on topic and domesticated news about the international conflict? The research includes three stages. The first stage is the analysis of media coverage in order to determine mechanisms of news domestication about the 2008 South Ossetia war. The second stage is the analysis of the political discourse about the conflict. And, finally, the third 7 stage is defining whether there was any reflection of the existing political elite’s discourse in media coverage, in particular in its domestication. If the answer is yes, it will be possible to describe the connections between media and political discourses and make assumptions about the interdiscursive nature of foreign news. Media analysis TV coverage was chosen as the subject of this study, because television is one of the most popular media in Ukraine due to its inexpensive nature and wide distribution. It has become also the most influential medium. According to the data of the International Telecommunication Union (ITU) in 2009 the percentage of households with a TV was about 94.77%, which means that the majority of Ukrainians have access to television, and TV is still a major source of information for them. The study includes Ukrainian TV channels with the highest viewing – Inter, “1+1” and “STB”, all are private and belong to different owners. All these channels are national, one of them, Inter channel, broadcasts in Russian, whereas two other, “STB” and “1+1” broadcast in Ukrainian. For this research, evening news programs of each channel were analyzed. Evening news programs were chosen because they are regarded as the summary of the day by the editors of the channels, since they are the fullest and the longest ones. The 2008 South Ossetia war took place from 8 of August till 12 of August when it was declared finished by Russia which was one of the parties. The period under investigation is longer than the war itself: it covers also one day before the start of the war and almost four weeks after 12 of August, because it was a period of peace settlement that was discussed actively in Ukraine. The period also covers an urgent summit of the European Union leaders at the beginning of September. The period under investigation is from 7 of August till 8 of September 2008. All evening news programs of all chosen channels for the period under investigation were analyzed, and all news materials that concerned 2008 South Ossetia war were chosen and transcribed. Data was taken from the official websites of the channels, from the online 8 archives of television programs or directly from the archive of the channels.
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