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PP 604
The Ukraine Conflict and European Media: A Comparative Study of Quality Newspapers in 13 European Countries
M. Kreutler
1
, S. Fengler
2
, J. Brinkmann
2
, D. Orlova
3
, A. Litvinenko
4
, S. Knopper
5
, M. Kus
6
, R. Hájek
7
, F. Dingerkus
8
1
TU Dortmund University, Erich-Brost-Institut, Dortmund, Germany
2
TU Dortmund University, Dortmund, Germany
3
National University, Kiev, Ukraine
4
FU Berlin, Berlin, Germany
5
Fontys Hogeschool Journalistiek, Tilburg, Netherlands
6
University of Wroclaw, Wroclaw, Poland
7
Charles University, Prague, Czech Republic
8
ZHAW, Zürich, Switzerland
The conflict in Ukraine has been in the focus of international media attention since protests against the Yanukovych government escalated in late 2013.
While the role of media in this conflict has been much discussed (see Pörzgen 2014), comparative data on international coverage is still missing. The pro‑
posed paper presents the results of a content analysis conducted in 26 opinion-leading newspapers from 13 European countries, including Russia and
Ukraine. __Theoretical Background__ General assumptions on foreign reporting include a focus on direct neighbours and few, powerful states, on politics,
elites and negative events (see Hafez 2002: 60–65). But in a European conflict unseen in decades and in the light of discussions about a particular European
public sphere, it could be argued that different logics may apply in at least some European media. __Methodology__ The content analysis involved cover‑
age of two opinion-leading newspapers in each of the following countries: Albania, the Czech Republic, Germany, Latvia, the Netherlands, Poland, Romania,
Russia, Serbia, Switzerland, Ukraine and the UK. The study focuses on four key moments of the crisis in the first half of 2014: Euromaidan and the ousting
of Viktor Yanukovych (key date 18 February), the referenda in Crimea (16 March) and Eastern Ukraine (11 May) and the presidential elections (25 May). For
each date and newspaper, three issues before and after the events were analysed, totalling in 24 issues per newspaper and 624 for the whole project. News‑
paper selection, article retrieval and analysis of relevant articles were conducted by country specialists native in the respective languages. __Results__
The study found a total of 3023 relevant articles. With regard to visibility of the topic, results suggest that newspapers that were not from Ukraine or Russia
can be roughly assembled in three groups: - Few, but large articles in the back of newspapers, many illustrations: Albanian, Romanian, Serbian newspapers
- Medium number of articles, mostly towards the back of the newspaper: British, Dutch, Czech, Portuguese newspapers, Latvian Diena, SwissTagesanzeiger
- Many articles, often close to/on front page: German, Polish newspapers, Latvian Latvijas Avīze, Swiss Neue Zürcher Zeitung Russian and Ukrainian news‑
papers were outliers in terms of article numbers, but show some peculiarities in their content: Russian newspapers published the second-highest number
of articles, but mostly placed in a rather unprominent way. Data also shows vast disregard for the Euromaidan phase, which was unique to the Russian
newspapers. Ukrainian papers unsurprisingly published the highest share of articles, but with a unique focus on civilians, academics and armed forces loyal
to the new Ukrainian government. In the other newspapers, politicians from Ukraine and Russia were most in focus, with Vladimir Putin being the single
most prominent actor. Politicians from EU countries, the EU itself or other parts of the world played only a minor role. __References__ Pörzgen, Gemma
(2014): Moskau fest im Blick. Die deutschen Medien und die Ukraine. In: Osteuropa, 64 (5–6), pp. 295–310. Hafez, Kai (2002): Die politische Dimension der
Auslandsberichterstattung. Bd. 1: Theoretische Grundlagen. Baden-Baden: Nomos.
PP 605
The Reverberations of Iconic Images: Journalistic Responses to the Alan Kurdi Photographs and Their Remediation in Digital Spheres
C. Peters
1
, M. Mortensen
2
, S. Allan
3
1
Aalborg University Copenhagen, Communication and Psychology, Copenhagen, Denmark
2
Copenhagen University, Media- Cognition and Communication, Copenhagen, Denmark
3
Cardiff University, Journalism- Media and Cultural Studies, Cardiff, United Kingdom
The power of imagery to galvanize public opinion has long been recognized, particularly when it disrupts tacit presuppositions about the world around us
(Allan & Peters, 2015; Mortensen, 2015). This rapidly proved to be the case on 3 September 2015, when photographs of three-year-old Syrian refugee Alan
Kurdi entered public circulation, in the first instance through social media sites. These heart-rending images – one of Kurdi face down on the sand, one
of aTurkish police officer cradling the child’s lifeless body in his arms – shattered many prevailing stereotypes of the‘European migrant crisis’(see also Berry,
Garcia-Blanco & Moore, 2015) In opening prominent discourses about the crisis up to contest, the images helped mobilize political demands for action, in
some cases prompting counter-efforts to re-inflect shifting public perceptions based on the empathy the Kurdi imagery engendered. While early reports
examining the Kurdi imagery have emphasized the initial journalistic frames employed (European Journalism Observatory, 2015) or the spread of the pho‑
tographs on social media (Vis et al., 2015), this paper looks beyond these immediate contexts to analyse its ongoing reverberations. Specifically, it traces
the discursive development in British and Danish news media across three time periods. First, we map the context surrounding the immediate response,
focussing on general parameters (who, what, when, where, why), platforms (how), and social institutions (political, journalistic, NGO, etc.). We analyse
the forms these discussions took in terms of topical content (i.e. refugee crisis, the plight of the Kurdi family), genre (e.g. editorials, political interviews,
public comment fields) and declared purpose (i.e. critique, calls for action, actual intervention, policy shift, request for public support). Second, we look to
the month that followed, focussing on how the images were re-appropriated and distributed over digital platforms (memes, bricolage, remediation), by
whom (i.e. right-wing groups, satirists), the constitutive interests these forms of visual communication served (e.g. awareness, protest), and the continued
journalistic renegotiation of the initial framings of debate. Finally, we analyse the discussion in end-of-year news retrospectives, investigating the broader
metanarratives (e.g. power of imagery, public opinion formation) invoked. By outlining the development of this process over a 4-month period, this paper
offers insights into the composition and specificity of competing discursive claims over the truth-value of these photographs within interspersed digital
ecologies. We argue that in an age defined by informational overload and constantly updated news flows, such outlying incidents offer a valuable opportu‑