Within Western media, Russia is often perceived to be the enemy, a secretive sly power force non one can trust since the days of the Bolsheviks continuing throughout the cold war. Has this representation changed or been effected since the Ukraine Russia war?
This article by the Daily Mail demonstrates immense support for Ukraine and highlights the suffering of those effected by Russia's actions. The red box in the top right corner refers to Russia as "evil", the noun "unleashed" connotes to an out of control animal. The use of this language aims to discredit Russia, their motives and ideologies whilst simultaneously uplifting, supporting and raising awareness of Ukrainian struggles. It creates a binary opposition of good and evil, pushing the reader to pick the correct side. This representation would have been very easy to conduct due to continuous negative representations of Russia in the past, however additionally because support for Ukraine also fits into British ideologies. Britain's traditional morals lie within morality and unity, with ideas that if the world is a better place, the more Britain will prosper. The UK's support for Ukraine has also come with a great cost, such as oil trade ending with Russia, as prices sky rocketed, peoples once enthusiastic support for Ukraine slowly began to crumble.
Furthermore, this articles uses examples of women and children to evoke an emotional response from the reader. In British ideologies (and many other places), women and children are the first to be protected in dangerous situations ( think men conscripted for war, women and children first to evacuate Titanic, etc). The fact these people are so distressed, not just the men on the front line, puts into perspective how severely dangerous and ruthless Putin has been throughout this war. Moreover, the woman on the right Omena Kurilo is a teacher, a respected and necessary job within British society, again evoking an strong emotional response from the reader.
This article is displays a Hegemonic ideology, backed by British ideologies as a whole, however by using example stories of individual Ukrainians it could be considered slightly pluralistic.
Eurovision is a European music competition held annually, around the month of May. In 2022 held in Turin, Italy, Ukraine won the competition with the song "Stefania".
Throughout 2022, the Russia Ukraine war held a lot of media attention and continuous support from the British. For this competition and those following, Russia is banned from competing.
By the Kalush Orchestra, the song is sang entirely in Ukrainian, being only the third song sung entirely in Ukrainian to represent them at Eurovision. It is a fusion of hip-hop and traditional folk music, written about a dedicated, hardworking mother, who is also sensitive. Their win demonstrated the mass supporting Ukraine has from the whole of Europe. After the United Kingdom placed second, they honourably held the competition whilst the war raged on. This was highly praised and positively praised by the press.
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