Between a nation and a state: the politics of Donbas displacement in Ukrainian and Russian state media

This thesis examines how the millions of people displaced from Eastern Ukraineâs Donbas region are represented in Ukrainian and Russian state media. Articles from Ukrainian Uriadovyi Kurier and Russian Rossiiskaia Gazeta are analysed with qualitative content analysis and ideological discourse analysis to determine their attitudes towards the displaced people and to suggest what representations of displacement in these papers achieve vis-à-vis the state. Media analyses previously conducted in both countries have detected attempts to connect the mass displacement to questions of nationhood and state capacity. Also, tensions between the involuntary migrants and communities in the regions receiving large numbers of displaced people have been noted. Analysis of the newspaper articles finds that whereas the Ukrainian publication uses the issue of displacement to construct a new national identity based on political loyalty toward the central state, the Russian paper takes the occasion to emphasise Russian state capacity, but does not deploy the topic of displacement for advancing a nation-building agenda, contrary to expectations.