Russian Media in the Context of the War in Ukraine

Abstract
Throughout history, there have been numerous examples where crimes against humanity were accompanied by media that created a dehumanized, marginalized, and demonized image of the opposing side of the conflict. The war aggression against Ukraine is no exception. Russian media still play a significant role in disseminating hatred and inciting crimes against Ukraine and its citizens.

This presention will highlight the results of current research on Russian media during the war aggression against Ukraine. It will consider the specifics of Russian media's work to observe changes in narrative from the traditional "we are brothers" to "liberating Ukraine from fascists" after 2014, and then to "denazification and deUkrainisation" after February 24, 2022.

The presentation will focus on the narratives disseminated in the media, as well as the visual images and verbal constructions used by specific Russian journalists and bloggers. Special attention will be paid to the speech analysis of some journalists. The journalists' statements will be examined to identify the existence of calls for crimes against humanity and genocide. The research will utilise a psycholinguistic approach for media content analysis.

Expert analysis of journalists’ speech is being conducted at the request of the Crimean Human Rights Group. This research is still ongoing, so only partial results will be presented.

Speaker bio
Yuliya Krylova-Grek, PhD, as. prof., National University of "Kyiv-Mohyla Academy"(UA), the director of NGO “Institute of Psycholinguistic Research”.

Her research focuses on the analysis of media communication and the influence of the mass media on people’s consciousness and behaviour. She is an author on the methodology of psycholinguistic text analysis. This methodology is used for analyzing media texts, identification and evidence of the existence of hidden hate speech and other methods and tools that is are used by journalists to influence readers' consciousness.