Visual Representations of Ukraine in New Zealand News Media

The next speaker in this IAMCR 2024 session is Dmitry Romanenko, whose interest is in the media portrayal of Ukraine in New Zealand media following Russia’s full-scale invasion of the country. Western coverage of the war has tended to take a strongly pro-Ukrainian perspective, which is a substantial shift from the far more critical pre-invasion media coverage. Here, the focus is on the use of images in such coverage, which represent dominant narratives and can have a substantial effect on international relations.

This can be understood through Entman’s cascading activation paradigm; Dmitry examines this through a study of articles from the New Zealand Herald, Post, and one other newspaper in New Zealand. Their coverage was strongest immediately after Russia’s unprovoked invasion, and has declined somewhat since then. Unsurprisingly, an analysis of some 2,600 such articles shows a largely negative evaluation of Ukraine (63%), focussing strongly on the negative impacts of the war on the country and its people.

Visual representation in news coverage also reflects this: images of death and destruction dominate. This diverges strongly from New Zealand’s image of self, as supporting, helping, and sending aid to Ukraine. Ukrainians are presented as a distance, inferior Other.