The Ukraine crisis as represented in the news : a critical discourse analysis

This thesis studies the role of language in the construction of ideological stances in newspapers from different countries representing the Ukraine political crisis. The events in Ukraine in 2013- 2014 resulted in a confrontation of world views on the crisis, mainly of the US and the EU, and Russia that are reflected in a selection of articles taken from four different online news portals. These news portals are The New York Times, Deustche Welle, The Moscow Times and Russia Today. The articles selected correspond to the three prominent events in the crisis: the annexation of Crimea, the Malaysian airplane crash and the sanctions introduced by the West against Russia. A Critical Discourse Analysis is adopted as a method of analyzing data. Discursive strategies as well as linguistic means that assist in framing texts of similar content into different ideological perspectives are identified and discussed. A comparison of the selected articles shows the different ways the news outlets set about to shape the public's opinion. The main findings of the study are that political and economic power groups tend to have an impact on political decisions and that these decisions are also driven by the economy of a country. Also, the investigated news texts serve as a means of legitimization of these political decisions and actions. Finally, language plays a crucial role in constructing ideological perspectives on events, which may be later naturalized and, therefore, transformed into common sense ideas and beliefs