This thesis aims to explain the role of media reports in the situation of wars and conflicts where the Ukrainian/Russian war will be the focus. Since the Ukrainian war has become the most global political debate worldwide because it has transferred from a national crisis to a geopolitical conflict, it becomes necessary to observe how different media has portrayed this war. It is a comparative desk study based on the discourse analysis method. The methodological framework is qualitative research because it seeks after a specific war by collecting and analysing different sources. The comparative research design gives depth answers to the four research questions identified. The discourse analysis method uses the collected news articles from two online newspapers, Al Jazeera and the Guardian. The first one is written in Arabic and the second one in English, giving a comprehensive view of the Ukrainian/Russian war. The selected news articles are limited to only the first week of the war because of the intensive reports presented by the media to understand the reason behind the war. The thesis uses abductive reasoning, while the securitization theory is used as the theoretical framework to highlight how the Ukrainian/Russian war has been securitized in different contexts. The results show that Al Jazeera and the Guardian have portrayed the war differently; the selected news articles from the Guardian have succeeded in a securitization process where it considered the Ukrainian/Russian war a threat to western security that has pushed the government leaders to security acts. On the other hand, the Arab media portrayed the Russian invasion as a security threat to Ukraine’s presence.

The present study seeks to identify if journalistic objectivity is compromised in the coverage of the Russian-Ukrainian war and how the various media bias practices are incorporated into news reports. It provides a critical analysis of the portrayal of conflicting sides of the conflict in Western mainstream media, examining how the "us" versus "them" narratives were constructed and how the produced discourse aligns with the principles of peace journalism. The study uses a combination of critical discourse analysis, semiotic, and narrative analysis methods as well as quantitative content analysis to achieve its objectives. Analyzing the content of twelve articles sourced from BBC and CNN, published across two distinct time frames, reveals that Western media coverage disproportionately represents the Ukrainian perspective, with the Russian standpoint largely marginalized or stereotypically characterized. The findings indicate that Western media also normalize or trivialize the role of neo-Nazi organizations in the conflict while downplaying potential war crimes committed by the Ukrainian side. Quantitative content analysis of 99 articles according to criteria adapted from Galtung's model finds a discernible dominance of war journalism over peace journalism, thus propagating divisive narratives. Comparative findings for each digital outlet suggest that the BBC adopts a more aggressive war journalism modality than CNN. The research advocates for a critical reflection on media coverage, the challenging of media biases, and a strive for a more balanced, peace-oriented portrayal of conflicts.

This study analyzes a recently published collection of poetry on the ongoing Russo-krainian war. Against a background of Russia’s new oppressive laws concerning the fact that a person can be sent to prison for up to 15 years for spreading “false information” about the war the study aims to investigate the way poets express themselves in the collective work Poeziia poslednego vremeni: Khronika, published in Saint Petersburg in the fall of 2022. The study was conducted through content analysis and close reading of selected poems of the collection. Conclusions that was drawn from the study is that the collective work contains poems with a strong anti-war message. Poets take a clear standpoint in the collection against the Russian regime and the war and oftentimes use a satirical and ironic way to undermine both the war and the Russian regime, which is remarkable considering the risk taken when speaking out against the war in today’s Russia.

On the 24th of February 2022, interstate war on a scale unseen since World War II returned to Europe, causing devastating suffering and loss of human life. As of writing, Ukraine’s ability to demonstrate battlefield success is frequently cited as key to sustain Western political willpower to send military aid. This study aims to test presumptions of a positive feedback loop between military assistance and its successful implementation with a mixed-method approach. Regression models analyze time-series data tracking a year of 33 countries’ military aid commitments to Ukraine using random effects (RE) to control for unobserved, country-specific and varying mediating variables. Based on German aversiveness to military solutions, a least-likely case debate analysis analyzes three Bundestag debates to uncover lawmakers’ justifications for approving or rejecting military aid proposals. Applying a theory-generating analysis framework, battlefield successes are confirmed as recurring arguments used to enforce pro-aid narratives, but do not necessarily overcome factors constraining military aid commitments. The RE regression finds a statistically significant positive relationship between Ukrainian battlefield success and military aid commitments. This raises immense implications for Ukrainian decisionmakers, who may be compelled to prioritize short-term military gains to secure future Western support.

This study aimed to highlight the practice of rhetoric and semiotics used in crisis communication during the Russian-Ukrainian war. On the 24th of February 2022, Russia began its invasion of Ukraine which resulted in the Ukrainian president, Zelensky, giving numerous speeches. In light of Zelensky's background as an actor, several discussions arose concerning his execution of delivery. The analyzed material in this study consisted of three speeches that Zelensky performed regarding the Russian-Ukrainian war, and these were collected from Youtube where the speeches were uploaded. The aim of this study was to investigate how Zelensky utilized rhetorical and semiotic tools in his communication. The investigation was carried out by qualitative content analysis, rhetorical analysis, and semiotic analysis, and the study was based on the theories of semiotics, rhetoric, and crisis communication. These literary tools and vocal speeches helped to answer the research question.The research showed that Zelensky was skilled in delivering his speeches in many ways. From a semiotic perspective, important elements, such as his looks and dress wear, as well as objects shown in the background, were analyzed during his speeches. This resulted in advantages such as a strengthened message and worldwide acceptance. Zelensky used influential rhetoric and distinct crisis communication to establish arguments and messages that awakened emotions in the audience to promote action.

The paper examines the reception of Ukrainian refugees in Poland from the organization employee’s point of view. A qualitative method was used by the researcher’s where semi-structured interviews were conducted with four staff members of Polish organizations working with refugees in their profession. The collected data was analyzed with the critical reflective theory. In the findings three major themes could be identified: Reception of Ukrainian refugees, satisfactions and dissatisfactions of the employees, and the difference in attitude towards Ukrainian and Syrian refugees. The empirical findings showed that the displaced Ukrainians were overall welcomed with a very positive attitude by the Polish people, and that there were contrasts to how this attitude has been different from the treatment that Syrian refugees have been met with. Finally, it was concluded that the main challenges that these employees foresaw in the future were the economic and professional lack of resources to in meeting the basic needs of these individuals.

The Russian invasion of Ukraine has catalyzed a battle of perspectives and different framings of theconflict between both parties involved. The central figure of the framing on the Russian side hasbeen Vladimir Putin who through his discourse attempted to justify his war efforts by framing theinvasion as a civilizational conflict. Even though, there has been a growing body of literature that hasanalyzed the civilizational shift in discourse of Vladimir Putin. There has not been much theoreticalengagement with the “clash of civilizations” thesis outlined by Samuel P. Huntington (1993). Existing research on this topic remains limited due to the fact that the events covered in this thesis happenedlast year. This paper aims to fill gaps in existing research by analyzing Putin's Annexation Speech delivered on September 30, 2022, during the signing of treaties annexing four Ukrainian regions tothe Russian Federation. Employing Norman Fairclough's three-dimensional model (1989;1992;2010), this study provides a comprehensive analysis of Putin's Annexation Speech to ascertain theextent to which Putin utilized the "clash of civilizations". The main thesis of this paper is that Vladimir Putin largely built on the “clash of civilizations” concept in his speech to frame the conflict in aspecific way. Additionally, it is argued that the utilization of this rhetoric is likely to influence theconflict and preserve it at its current scale in the foreseeable future.

Facebook is being used by both Russia and Ukraine as a tool of war, for very different purposes. This demonstrates that the platform no longer serves the sole function of connecting communities together. Existing literature has recognized that social media is being used in the current Russo-Ukrainian war but has yet to conduct comparative and contrastive analyses of Russian and Ukrainian social media strategies and effects. Conducting these analyses will illustrate not only what strategies are being used, but how they can be simultaneously advantageous and disadvantageous for belligerents. By focusing on one platform, Facebook, one can not only learn why it is of crucial importance to both countries, but how the platform might be used moving forward. The findings of this paper suggest that Russian and Ukrainian tactics on Facebook are similar in at least six ways, but on the whole, they differ more than they coincide. The six coinciding tactics include funding, documentation on the ground, narrative spreading, heightening morale, name-calling, and utilization of the platform by leaders. Additionally, the effect of any given strategy varies, with some being successful, and others unsuccessful. Ultimately, these findings can serve as a resource for the national security, social media, political, legal, and academic communities.

In the current state of the world, embassies provide a crucial perspective to world matters as an inspectional office to view the status quo from the front row of the global politics. The embassies as organizations are sensitive and reactive to the events in the global politics, making them organizations worth studying for more profound in the various levels they impact. The critical focus on the international event in this study was the Russian launched full-scale war on Ukraine and how the embassies and their employees reacted to it. The end goal of this study is to report the possible change and its impacts on the core work of the employees inside the embassies and how much they have to adapt and further develop their daily tasks and duties. This study was done from the qualitative perspective by conducting interviews and then analyzing the critical themes of the data and viewing the results in this research problem through the Social System’s Theory, which emphasizes the reactiveness and interdependencies of the different systems that work together and the Social Ecological Model that builds the understanding on three different levels on the world society and how they correlate from one to another. The change in the core work was reported to go from a broader perspective to individual employees and the other way around from employees to the organizations, producing change in multiple levels of the system. It was interesting to find out how individual experiences correlate with the broader worldwide reactions and how the work motivation is experienced in a situation such as this.

In times of war, help and support is provided by NGO:s, and this essay investigates the NGO:s strategies for seeking support in times of war and crisis. Previous research has shown that refugees are portrayed differently in the media depending on their background. It is necessary for NGO:s to write about the affected people, in order to inform about their work carried out on-site to spread knowledge, create credibility and receive support through funding. A complex marketing which alludes to the people in need. Therefore, this analysis looks at how NGOs present themselves and the war situations with the intention of convincing their audience to donate money. With a qualitative rhetorical analysis combined with semiotic tools, the paper analyzes two pages, one about the Syrian war and one about the Ukrainian war found on two of Sweden’s biggest NGO:s, the Red Cross and Doctor Without Borders websites. The analysis shows how refugees from the Ukrainian war were presented as individual beings and personalized, compared to the Syrian war in which refugees were presented in groups with no personal traits. Doctor Without Borders also focused more on their medical action rather than on the actual war.