The event selected for this paper is the current conflict on the territory of Ukraine. This event has been going on for over half a year, it has many participants and sides, and it also is often highlighted in the news on various media. Some of the world’s most famous news portals were chosen for this paper.
Ukraine in maps: How the crisis spread. BBC. 2014. Web.
The first chosen source highlighting the current situation in the East of Ukraine is BBC. The portal works through a presentation of the political and ideological division of the country illustrating it with maps. The event is presented objectively. BBC follows its history and background; the most influential political figures are also mentioned. The portal demonstrates how the conflict appeared and escalated, how it moved from the center, to the West, to the South and finally, to the East of Ukraine.
Ukraine fighting has killed at least 331 people since ceasefire – UN. The Guardian. 2014. Web.
The article posted on The Guardian is designed to explore the cease fire regime that is considered to be active in Ukraine today. The article reports that hundreds of civilians continue to be killed nearly every day in spite of the agreement to stop the fire. The article also informs that none of the fighting sides agrees to take the responsibility for the missiles falling on the civilian districts.
Timeline: Ukraine’s political crisis. Aljazeera. 2014. Web.
Aljazeera provides its audience with a detailed day by day timeline of the events in Ukraine starting with the end of November when Victor Yanukovich abandoned the trade agreement with the European Union, which caused mass protests in the main Square in Kiev and soon transformed into bloody confrontations. The source presents the history of the event without choosing sides.
Motyl, Alexander. Ukraine Will Have to Live With Putin’s Delusions. 2014. Web.
Finally, the article presented on Huffington post clearly states its bias. Even though the disagreement between Russian and Western perspectives of the conflict is described very well, the author of the article openly states that Russian point of view is wrong and the one of the West is right. Other articles about this events posted on Huffington post also favor Western side and often make anti-Russian claims.
The event selected for this paper is a very complicated conflict that has been developing for decades, and quickly escalated in the end of November last year creating a massive clash between the government and the people of Ukraine that did not want to be ruled by their politicians. Maidan, Crimea and East of Ukraine were fighting for different things, but in general their main moving force was the same – total dissatisfaction with the government of the country.
As soon as the conflict entered its active and violent phase, it became popular all around the world. Various channels and radio stations broadcasted the latest news from the main Square in the center of Kiev. Ukraine has never been the focus of much attention. Many western people would still have difficulties finding it on the world’s political map.
This rather small country has never been famous. Its only promoters were its celebrities and star athletes such as football players, boxers and skiers. The lack of information about the reasons of Ukrainian conflict created a lot of confusion in the Western minds. To be able to evaluate and comprehend the overwhelming events tearing this country apart western societies had to collect a lot of information about political, cultural and ideological development and division of Ukraine.
Various mass media took quite some time to be able to present the required information for their audiences. Today, the event is highlighted from various perspectives of the fighting sides of Ukraine. This is often done in order to provide the readers with a wide range of data and let them make their own conclusions about the event. At the same time, political propaganda and framing are essential parts of any war or armed conflict.
The current conflict in Ukraine claims to have more than two sides that have personal interest in the outcome of the event. According to the information presented by BBC news portal, the cultural, political and ideological division between Ukrainian East and West has been existing ever since the Soviet Union fell apart in 1991 (Ukraine in maps: How the crisis spread, par. 4).
This means that the core group of this conflict is compiled by the people of Ukraine thrown to the opposite sides of the barricades by their political and ideological beliefs. The government supports only one of these sides. The other one seeks favor from the president of Russian Federation, who is a well known political figure viewed as an uncontrolled, self-willed and old fashioned kind of leader, his strategies and approaches are not approved by the Western politicians, this is why in this conflict Putin is often portrayed as an aggressor.
This is demonstrated by the article taken from Huffington Post, which clearly states that Russian position is wrong, as opposed to the one of the West (Motyl, par. 6). Text of this article is illustrated with a photograph of Ukrainian banners hinting that Putin, Stalin and Hitler have a lot in common, framing the Russian leader, basically, as evil. In fact, on Huffington Post it is very hard to find an article about current situation in Ukraine that would not position Russia as a definite and rather irrational aggressor pursuing ultimate domination.
The European Union is another quite powerful side of the conflict. Supported by the United States it fights for the establishment of new models of power, besides, the Union is interested in making Ukraine one of its members, as this country would make a very rich source of cheap labor, at the moment this role in European Union is played by such countries as Slovakia, Romania and Hungary, but as the standards of living grow in these countries, the cost of their labor rises too.
By means of providing the audience with a detailed timeline of the events in Ukraine ever since the first protestors arrived to Maidan, Aljazeera does not seem to ever mention the troops of Russian Federation that are currently operation on the territory of Eastern Ukraine as states by multiple articles on Huffington Post.
Instead, the article on Aljazeera carefully sorts its notions and terms, without categorizing the confronting powers, the author of the article uses terms “pro-Russian protestors” and “Ukrainian troops”, not the other way round (Timeline: Ukraine’s political crisis, par. 18). Presentation of Ukrainian armed conflict is different on these two resources.
Obviously, they work from different points of view and it is very likely that they support different sides of the event, but while Aljazeera is trying to be very careful with its facts and their sources by means of only presenting quoted information, Huffington Post makes very straightforward claims and radical statements without supporting them with any visual proofs.
The article from The Guardian explores the most recent events happening in the East of Ukraine, namely, the course of ceasefire. Even after the agreement to stop fire was signed the battling in various districts of Eastern Ukraine keeps going on. One of the questions that cause the most heated debates is world’s desire to find out which side drops missiles on the civilians.
Both the rebels and national troops blame each other and call each other terrorists (Ukraine fighting has killed at least 331 people since ceasefire – UN, par. 8). The researchers try to calculate the possible points of the departure of the missiles by measuring their angles of incidence, direction and even the time period between the sound of discharge and the explosion.
The massive confusion that does not seem to have any possible end continues to happen in the East of Ukraine. This confusion is mainly enforced by the media that are in a complete disagreement, broadcasting contradictory information from both sides.
While Russian and Ukrainian mass media are involved into a hot information war, Western mass media are mainly trying to stay objective and present the events from all possible perspectives without taking any sides, but of course, among them there are the median engaged into utter propaganda and political framing.