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.

摘要

本文探讨并比较了俄罗斯最大的国家联盟电视广播公司第一频道 (Ch1) 使用的视觉图像，以证明俄罗斯对近代历史上两次重大地缘政治冲突的干预是合理的：乌克兰东部的武装冲突和叙利亚的内战。数据显示，虽然 Ch1 对乌克兰冲突的预测是基于对讲俄语的东乌克兰人民的同情，但叙利亚战争的框架是通过关注俄罗斯作为政治和军事超级大国的伟大来激发民族自豪感。因此，这项研究扩展了对战争媒体表征的理论理解，尤其是不断变化的政治背景如何影响通过不同的情感诉求来表征和增强身份的身份。