Russia-Ukraine War of 2022: A Descriptive Content Analysis of War News Report Framing by America’s New York Post, China’s Global Times and South Africa’s The Citizen

Abstract

This paper attempts to understand war reporting of the 2022 Russia-Ukraine conflict from Western, Asian and an African news media during the first two weeks of the war, from 24 February to 11 March 2022. A descriptive content analysis has been made of the war frames as reported online by New York Post (USA), Global Times (China) and The Citizen (South Africa). These communication entities used different news frames in their narrative of this international conflict dictated along differences in ideological orientation and considerations of their target audience. The themes of conflict, human impact, economic consequences, attribution of responsibility, sources and tonality serve as the basis for the content analysis. New York Post labelled the “invasion” as a “war” in which crimes were committed throughout Ukraine, South African Citizen news framing was less vicious, while Global Times simply characterized the invasion as a “crisis”. In general, the New York Post’s coverage of the Russia-Ukraine conflict largely emphasized the Ukrainian victims of the war and depict Russia as the aggressor. Global Times on the other hand promoted the China’s potential role as a mediator, while The Citizen of South Africa sought to maintain the country’s neutral stance.

Keywords

• war reporting
• journalism
• framing
• news media
• political ideologies