Visual images as affective anchors: strategic narratives in Russia’s Channel One coverage of the Syrian and Ukrainian conflicts

ABSTRACT

This article explores and compares the visual images used by Channel One (Ch1), Russia’s biggest state-aligned television broadcaster, to justify Russia’s intervention in two major geopolitical conflicts in recent history: the armed conflict in eastern Ukraine and Syria’s civil war. The data reveal that while Ch1’s projection of Ukrainian conflict is anchored in compassion to the Eastern Ukraine population speaking the Russian language, the Syrian war is framed to fuel the feeling of national pride by focusing on the Russian greatness as a political and military superpower. This research, thus, extends the theoretical understanding of media representation of war, especially how the changing political context impacts which identities are represented and made potent through different emotional appeals. The article conceptualises visual images as affective anchors that can be used to reactivate collective memory and dominant discourses and construct emotional relationships between the audience and mediated events.

KEYWORDS:

• Strategic narratives
• visual images
• affective anchoring
• emotions
• war reporting
• television news
• Russia

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Notes

1 https://www.1tv.ru/news/2014-06-04/43274-detey_chi_roditeli_ostalis_v_zone_boevyh_deystviy_razmestili_v_sanatorii_v_rostovskoy_oblasti.

2 https://www.1tv.ru/news/2014-07-12/37175-bezhenka_iz_slavyanska_vspominaet_kak_pri_ney_kaznili_malenkogo_syna_i_zhenu_opolchentsa.

3 https://www.1tv.ru/news/2014-06-29/44874-kiev_i_opolchentsy_ob_yavili_o_peremirii_no_dialog_shel_pod_grohot_kanonady.

4 https://www.1tv.ru/news/2015-10-22/8834-v_sirii_rossiyskie_voennye_priglasili_na_aviabazu_zhurnalistov_iz_raznyh_stran.

5 https://www.1tv.ru/news/2016-02-21/946-moschnye_bomby_byli_vzorvany_v_damaske_i_homse.

6 https://www.1tv.ru/news/2016-01-18/3236-evropu_nakryvaet_volna_prestupleniy_s_uchastiem_bezhentsev.

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Irina Grigor (Khaldarova)

Dr. Irina Grigor (Khaldarova) completed her PhD in Media and Communication Studies (University of Helsinki) in 2020. Her doctoral research focused on the visuals employed in the Russian television news to mediate the international conflicts and advance the state’s interpretation of the events for domestic and global audiences. Her research interests center around strategic narratives and, more broadly, the role played by news media in shaping public opinion and political behaviour.

Mervi Pantti

Dr. Mervi Pantti is Professor in Media and Communication Studies at the Faculty of Social Sciences, University of Helsinki. Her research is concerned with the emotional dimension of mediated communication, crisis and disaster reporting and media accountability. She is co-author of Disasters and the media (with Karin Wahl-Jorgensen and Simon Cottle, Peter Lang, 2012) and editor of Media and the Ukraine crisis: Hybrid media practices and narratives of conflict (Peter Lang, 2016).