The discussion on how to correctly name the enemies of the Ukrainian army in Donbas was especially active in 2014-2015. Since then, every Ukrainian media has had the opportunity to make their choice regarding the definitions. However, in July 2020, the discussion suddenly resumed.
The revival of discussion was caused by two statements made by President V. Zelensky, in which he used sweeping terms to address Russian armed forces in the East, calling them "that side". This statement caused a wave of negative messages about the president, and criticism of the president by the PM Volodymyr Aryev spread especially well in the media.
The Center for Content Analysis decided to find out how various media call Russian forces in Donbass during the seventh year of war.
In general, media critics agreed that the terms "pro-Russian militants" and "separatists" are closest to Russia's strategic narrative, according to which the "civil war" continues in Donbas. On the other hand, the most "patriotic" terms are "Russian occupiers", "Russian troops" or other terms that clearly indicate the Kremlin leadership. The terms "occupiers" and "aggressors", which indicate the external nature of the confrontation, are also quite acceptable. Finally, the term "terrorists" also fits into the part of the pro-Ukrainian narrative according to which the state is suing Russia in international courts as a sponsor of terrorism.
To conduct the study, we collected all media content distributed during July 13-19 (before the ceasfire) which contained references to the above terms in the context of Donbas, as well as more neutral words such as "militants", "enemy" , "opponent".
20 publications were randomly selected for each media. If a source had fewer materials, we left the number that could be found (at least 8). Then the coding procedure was carried out: all irrelevant messages (that did not contain mentions of Russians in Donbas or Crimea) were rejected, then the next sample of publications were randomly selected to finally reach the required number of materials. Finally, the pieces were coded according to the message with the most commonly used terms: terrorist, adversary, that side, militant, aggressor, occupier, enemy, separatist, illegal armed forces, invader, etc. Finally, after the rejection of the irrelevant materials, a total of 777 publications generated by the eight largest TV channels and 31 online medi were analyzed.
Of course, news reports quite often contain several descriptive terms, but we paid attention primarily to those placed at the beginning of the material, because they are the most noticeable to the audience.
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TV channels: 50% - enemy, adversary; 21% - aggressors, occupiers, invaders; 16% - Russian troops (with variations); 7% - militants, illegal armed forces; 4% - terrorists; 2% - separatists, pro-Russian forces.
Online: TV channels: 44% - enemy, adversary; 24% - aggressors, occupiers, invaders; 20% - Russian troops (with variations); 7% - militants, illegal armed forces; 3% - separatists, pro-Russian forces; 2% - terrorists;
The study of the terms usage in media texts in general gives the expected picture: patriotic, balanced and pro-Russian media in most cases behave exactly as one might predict. Thus, Korrespondent, 112.ua, Apostrophe, Golos.ua, Ukrainian National News mostly avoid "hits" on Russians, and 'conditionally balanced' Liga, Interfax-Ukraine and Ukrinform, as well as patriotic Censor.net, Channel 5 and Espresso.tv, on the other hand, actively emphasize Russia's role in the armed conflict. The rest of the outlets occupy an intermediate position.
But there are some interesting exceptions.
First, it is TC Inter. owned by D. Firtash, which often invites the representatives of the pro-Russian political party 'Opposition Platform for Life' to comment the issues of relations with the Russian Federation, deliberately adheres to patriotic wording. Instead, TC 1+1 and the site of TSN owned by I.Kolomoisky, despite the well-known patriotic position, rarely start the material with a clear indication of the Russian Federation. It does not apply to UNIAN news site as another media from this holding.
Foreign-funded media outlets, Deutsche Welle and Radio Liberty, which, presumably because of their demonstrative adherence to journalistic standards, rarely call Russians as Russians, but sometimes use term "pro-Russian." Strana.ua famous for its pro-Russian position, adheres to neutral or even patriotic wording in most news, but at the same time distributes some publications with a Russian narrative.
