As narrativas da guerra na Ucrânia pelos veículos de imprensa Russia Today e BBC

Abstract

On February 24, 2022, Russian forces began what, in the Western media, was called the Invasion of Ukraine in Western media, and as the Special Military Operation in Russian media. This thesis analyzes the content of the Russia Today (RT) and British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC) broadcasters regarding the reasons, from each perspective, that led to the military conflict in the Ukrainian theater of operations between the Russian Federation and Ukraine. The objective of this dissertation is to identify the divergent narratives present in the selected videos from RT and BBC through descriptive research and the creation of a comparative framework with the arguments of both companies' narratives about key events, in order to identify how being government-owned influences their journalistic objectivity and impartiality. Through the analysis, distortions, omissions, and falsehoods in the argumentative elements of RT and BBC narratives can be observed, as well as the presence of Public Diplomacy elements in both, and in the case of RT, counter-hegemonic arguments also guide the construction of its narrative regarding the motives that led to the conflict in Eastern Europe. Preserving spaces for dissent and having access to different perspectives on events is crucial, as impartiality in journalism, especially in the mentioned companies, remains an idealism. Suppressing these spaces for opposing views opens the door to the atrophy of critical thinking and the creation of consensus dictated by groups of power, in this case, geopolitical power.