Strategically constructing news content: A study into frame building by RT and Ukraine Today

Abstract

On the 5th of September 2014 an agreement was signed on a ceasefire and the launch of a political process to resolve the Ukrainian crisis and the fighting in eastern Ukraine. The news coverage on this agreement; the Minsk Protocol, is clearly constructed differently by Russian government-funded international news network RT and Ukraine Today, a Ukrainian-based private international television channel. RT and Ukraine Today strategically frame their broadcasts in the moments leading up to, during, and following the signing of the Minsk Protocol. This research will firstly focus on the organizational and structural factors of both media systems. A frame analysis will furthermore be conducted to reveal the set of frames that RT and Ukraine Today have employed to map out how particular frames have dominated the representation of the signing of the Minsk Protocol. Throughout the history of Russia and all its territorial changes news coverage has often been framed as leaders have never shunned the use of censorship and propaganda, making this case and the current Ukrainian crisis both scholarly and socially relevant.