The Greek Newspaper Coverage of the Ukrainian War: The Pre-Invasion Phase and the Day of the Invasion

Abstract

This paper is a first attempt to look at the Greek media coverage of the Russian-Belarus invasion of Ukraine. Three daily newspapers are used during the period of December 2021-February 2022 to measure the frequency of coverage of the issue during the pre-invasion phase and the first day of the invasion. In addition, a qualitative content analysis is employed to account for the three newspapers’ stance on the Russian-Belarus invasion. One conclusion that emerges, which to many would appear surprising, is that all newspapers unequivocally condemned the Russia-Belarus invasion without any strings attached to their position. Since these three newspapers cover a wide spectrum of the Greek political ideology, it appears that despite Greece’s long historical, economic, and cultural (religion included) ties with Russia, this invasion was considered unacceptable.

Keywords

• russia
• belarus
• ukraine
• greek media
• war
• public opinion
• polls
• newspapers