The Framing of Russian Military Involvement in the Syrian Civil War on Sputnik Media

DOI

10.2991/assehr.k.200729.022How to use a DOI?

Keywords

Framing, Media, Russian Military, Syrian Civil War, Sputnik

Abstract

The legitimacy of a country’s foreign policy is often determined by how the media report on the country’s political activity outside that country. The country’s involvement in a conflict or war and the reason for engaging needs to be communicated to the public globally with a media-framing strategically. This article aims to explore the framing of the Russian military’s involvement in the Syrian civil war by the online media outlet Sputnik. The researchers employed a qualitative content analysis method on 238 articles published by Sputnik between February and September 2016. During this period Russia and the United States, as two external powers involved in the Syrian civil war, agreed on a ceasefire. This development represented a strategic moment for Russia to communicate the activities of its military in Syria by using a framing strategy in Sputnik. This research revealed that Sputnik actively used framing to legitimize the Russian military’s involvement in the Syrian civil war. Specifically, the media outlet used the frames of responsibility, morality, and conflict to attract public attention and to shape their perspectives about the Russian military’s involvement in the Syrian civil war as necessary and positive. The findings indicate that, at Sputnik, framing constituted an attempt to form a positive image of Russia as a strong state to the international world through news related to the involvement of the Russian military in Syria’s civil war.

Copyright

© 2020, the Authors. Published by Atlantis Press.

Open Access

This is an open access article distributed under the CC BY-NC license (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/).

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TY  - CONF
AU  - Khairuni Cesario
AU  - Reynaldo de Archellie
PY  - 2020
DA  - 2020/07/30
TI  - The Framing of Russian Military Involvement in the Syrian Civil War on Sputnik Media
BT  - Proceedings of the International University Symposium on Humanities and Arts (INUSHARTS 2019)
PB  - Atlantis Press
SP  - 112
EP  - 116
SN  - 2352-5398
UR  - https://doi.org/10.2991/assehr.k.200729.022
DO  - 10.2991/assehr.k.200729.022
ID  - Cesario2020
ER  -