Sam Bradshaw, Strategic Storytelling: Russian State-Backed Media Coverage of the Ukraine War

Strategic narratives help shape wars. In modern history, strategic narratives were used during the Cold War, the War in Afghanistan, and the Iraq War to justify military invasions and manipulate opponents. During the 2022 Russian invasion of Ukraine, Russia was accused of weaponizing its state-backed media outlets to promote a pro-Russian version of the war. Consequently, Russian state-backed media faced a series of new sanctions from Western governments and technology companies. While some studies have sought to identify disinformation about the war, less research has focused on understanding how these stories come together as narratives, particularly in non-English language contexts.

Grounded in strategic narrative theory, a new article in the International Journal of Public Opinion Research co-authored by SIS Professor Samantha Bradshaw analyzes Russian state-backed media coverage of the Ukraine war across 12 languages. Using topic modeling and narrative analysis, the authors find that Russian state-backed media focused primarily on promoting identity narratives, forming an image that Russia is powerful, Ukraine is evil, and the West is hypocritical. Russian strategic narratives both converged and diverged across languages and outlets in ways that met Russia's desired image and objectives in each region.

The research helps Bradshaw and her co-authors to better theorize the evolving and transformative role of strategic narrative in Russian state-backed news media during times of conflict.

Read the article here.

Samantha Bradshaw, Mona Elswah, Monzima Haque, Dorian Quelle, Strategic Storytelling: Russian State-Backed Media Coverage of the Ukraine War, International Journal of Public Opinion Research, Volume 36, Issue 3, Autumn 2024, edae028, https://doi.org/10.1093/ijpor/edae028