Putting Discourses About the War in Ukraine on a Map: How Different is Everyone’s Story?

Abstract

The article discusses political and media discourses on Russia’s all-out war in Ukraine. It assesses how convergent or divergent discourses are and determines whether the assumption of globalization of information flows holds at the time of war. Political and media discourses are considered here in conjunction. A method for visualizing and measuring the divergence or convergence of political and media discourses is developed and applied. In addition to illuminating the concept of war propaganda, it can be used to test a range of theories about relationships between governments and mass media in a comparative perspective. The geographical scope of the study includes five countries: Russia, Ukraine, the United States, the United Kingdom, and France. The coverage of the first twelve weeks of the war by eleven mass media is considered, as well as speeches devoted to the war delivered by presidents of the five countries during the same period.

Appendix ‘Descriptive statistics for 15 most frequent categories included in the custom-built dictionary’

	Putin	Zelensky	Biden	Johnson	Marcon	NYT	CNN	WP	The Times	Le Monde	UP	RBC	Liga	Gazeta.ru	Kommersant	Izvestia
Ukraine	0.64 [2]	0.89 [1]	1.19 [1]	1.12 [1]	0.84 [1]	0.52 [1]	1.36 [1]	0.62 [1]	0.46 [1]	0.87 [1]	0.74 [1]	1.83 [1]	0.87 [1]	0.86 [2]	0.25 [3]	0.34 [2]
Russia	0.86 [1]	0.73 [2]	0.92 [2]	0.40 [3]	0.45 [3]	0.49 [2]	0.87 [2]	0.52 [2]	0.37 [2]	0.52 [2]	0.48 [4]	1.02 [2]	0.56 [4]	1.25 [1]	0.63 [1]	0.65 [1]
war	0.18 [10]	0.59 [4]	0.34 [5]	0.27 [5]	0.61 [2]	0.33 [3]	0.30 [4]	0.35 [3]	0.32 [3]	0.42 [3]	0.36 [6]	0.66 [3]	0.76 [2]	0.07 [23]	0.07 [14]	0.05 [24]
Kyiv	0.20 [8]	0.10 [17]	0.06 [16]	0.19 [9]	0.06 [17]	0.09 [11]	0.25 [6]	0.1 [11]	0.10 [7]	0.28 [4]	0.22 [10]	0.31 [5]	0.23 [8]	0.29 [6]	0.10 [8]	0.21 [6]
sanctions	0.05 [24]	0.19 [11]	0.18 [11]	0.18 [10]	0.10 [11]	0.09 [10]	0.15 [11]	0.11 [9]	0.10 [8]	0.14 [7]	0.07 [20]	0.22 [10]	0.11 [19]	0.34 [5]	0.27 [2]	0.20 [7]
defence	0.07 [17]	0.29 [7]	0.33 [6]	0.23 [6]	0.06 [17]	0.07 [13]	0.18 [10]	0.11 [8]	0.11 [6]	0.04 [23]	0.40 [5]	0.28 [7]	0.37 [5]	0.19 [13]	0.06 [16]	0.23 [4]
USA	0.23 [5]	0.06 [26]	0.31 [7]	0.02 [30]	0.06 [17]	0.15 [6]	0.05 [24]	0.12 [7]	0.06 [16]	0.08 [12]	0.11 [16]	0.31 [6]	0.21 [11]	0.47 [3]	0.22 [4]	0.25 [3]
the State	0.57 [3]	0.70 [3]	0.03 [24]	0.04 [22]	0.13 [7]	0.07 [14]	0.09 [16]	0.08 [17]	0.05 [19]	0.05 [18]	0.12 [15]	0.11 [21]	0.11 [17]	0.09 [19]	0.09 [10]	0.11 [10]
NATO	0.23 [5]	0.04 [29]	0.25 [8]	0.20 [8]	0.13 [7]	0.06 [15]	0.14 [12]	0.1 [12]	0.07 [12]	0.10 [10]	0.05 [27]	0.1 [23]	0.06 [27]	0.16 [15]	0.06 [17]	0.09 [16]
security	0.22 [7]	0.14 [14]	0.19 [10]	0.06 [16]	0.13 [7]	0.05 [21]	0.09 [14]	0.08 [20]	0.05 [22]	0.08 [13]	0.05 [25]	0.13 [18]	0.11 [19]	0.13 [17]	0.08 [11]	0.11 [12]
Putin	0.00 [54]	0.00 [54]	0.39 [4]	0.70 [2]	0.03 [22]	0.24 [4]	0.33 [3]	0.28 [4]	0.25 [4]	0.17 [6]	0.10 [17]	0.22 [9]	0.13 [15]	0.20 [10]	0.08 [12]	0.10 [14]
people	0.20 [8]	0.20 [10]	0.58 [3]	0.40 [3]	0.29 [4]	0.21 [5]	0.27 [5]	0.22 [5]	0.21 [5]	0.03 [29]	0.04 [28]	0.04 [31]	0.04 [30]	0.03 [30]	0.02 [30]	0.02 [33]
oil & gas	0.03 [31]	0.09 [21]	0.03 [24]	0.06 [16]	0.10 [11]	0.11 [8]	0.07 [20]	0.09 [14]	0.07 [13]	0.12 [9]	0.08 [19]	0.14 [16]	0.08 [22]	0.24 [8]	0.17 [5]	0.09 [15]
territory	0.33 [4]	0.17 [12]	0.10 [13]	0.03 [25]	0.06 [17]	0.02 [26]	0.06 [23]	0.03 [27]	0.03 [26]	0.04 [21]	0.31 [9]	0.2 [11]	0.23 [9]	0.20 [11]	0.08 [13]	0.17 [8]
EU	0.03 [29]	0.08 [22]	0.05 [19]	0.03 [25]	0.10 [11]	0.03 [25]	0.09 [15]	0.02 [30]	0.05 [20]	0.06 [15]	0.05 [26]	0.16 [15]	0.07 [24]	0.25 [7]	0.12 [7]	0.11 [11]
words	19,511	133,782	22,232	13,239	3101	5,213,627	1,786,222	1,479,203	3,871,581	1,464,944	288,137	5,103,670	490,085	392,613	479,454	196,533
% classified	5.17	6.64	5.96	5.06	4.13	3.46	5.92	4.15	3.16	4.11	6.37	8.46	6.82	6.78	3.22	4.06