Yazova
Anna
Dnipropetrovsk National
University Oles Honchar, Ukraine
The image of Ukraine in the UK’s press under
international law
In our time the
positive international image of any country
assumes the high standard of living, level of education and culture level.
No
wonder a famous essayist and journalist D. Olshansky argues that the image of
country is a mental image of any state is formed in the minds of citizens and
foreign audiences. It is created in the communicated process between the
subjects of economic, social and political life within the country and outside
its borders [2, с. 166].
The image of
Ukraine depends on different factors: the
contents, nature and coordination of state organizations in activity on
the international arena. To become the part of global
information universe Ukraine is to have a
good legal terrain like international laws. All Ukrainian laws are
based on The Constitution of Ukraine. But also
exiting another laws: the Ukrainian laws “About information” 1992, “About
printable mass media (press) in
Ukraine” 1992. These documents formed the legal basis for the development of
mass media of Ukraine. Also in 2009 the Cabinet of
Ministers accepted “A state
program for the formation of a positive international image of Ukraine for the
period until 2011”. It was a successful
program, but it had a bad funding.
The
state reflects political, economic, social, cultural component in the media
(Internet, newspapers, TV), because an effective media helps to formulate an
opinion about the state. As British journalist D. Stamper said about this: “The
newspapers are owned by certain people, and these people have their point of
view” [4]. So, what readers have is the possibility to
get in the Western media, usually representing only a fragmented view of
Ukraine situation.
During
the study two leading publications in the UK have been analyzed: The Daily
Mirror and The Independent.
Over the past two
years 1395 articles mentioning Ukraine (549 articles in 2013 and 846 in 2014
have been published). However, the study showed that only half of them related
to events that are directly associated with Ukraine, other materials were only
a
dip into an individual aspects of the Ukrainian sports, politics
or culture in the context of British news. Article publication “The Daily
Mirror” small volume (4-5 paragraphs) and contains a lot of illustrations
(photographs, animations in GIF format).
549
materials in 2013 year were organized under such categories as:
"Football" (444), "News" (47), TV (29), Games (8),
"Boxing" (6), "lifestyle" (4), Special (3), the "Other
sports" (3), "Tennis"(2). It is obvious that the majority of materials were placed in the sections
devoted to sport. The most popular tags of the article were: "English
football team", "Football fans", "World Cup
Qualification".
In
2014, the situation did not change significantly. The only difference was that
sports life of Ukraine faded into the background. It gave place to the
political developments in the state (Ukraine has been presented as a buffer
area, which from ancient times was the area of power distribution between
stronger neighboring countries). It was also revealed that in 2014 most of the
articles were published under tags: "The crisis in Ukraine",
"Politics", "Ukrainian protests", "Plane crash".
Almost all the news was posted under the tags containing information about
negative events occurring in Ukrainian society.
Over
the past two years in the publication of “The Independent” 2427 articles
mentioning Ukraine were published. Articles of the newspaper “The Independent”
were different in size (4-5 paragraphs; 10-15 paragraphs) and contained a lot
of illustrations (photos, videos).
588
publications were found in the website of the electronic edition in the process
of the necessary materials in 2013research. The main theme of articles of the
first half of 2013 was sport (football competitions and boxing matches), the
second part contained materials about the political situation in the state and
the actions of the Ukrainian politicians and public authorities. Basic tags
publications in 2013 were "News", "Sports", "Arts
& Entertainment", "Voices".
The
number of articles mentioning Ukraine rose in more than three times in 2014.
This process is explained by the fact that the events which occurred on the
Ukrainian territory directly influenced the political situation in the
countries of the European Union. Also in 2014 the number of articles published
under the tag of "Voice" rose. These articles contained quotes of
famous politicians, publicists, journalists about the situation in Ukraine.
During
the comparative analysis of two leading British publications, it was found that
a major theme that attracts the attention of journalists of Great Britain is
Ukrainian sports (mainly football and boxing) as well as Ukrainian athletes:
Eugene Konoplyanka, Vitali and Volodymyr Klitchko. Most of the materials about
sport are positive, although materials about politics are negative. There was
more news about politics than the one about sport, so articles that contained
negative information about life in Ukraine prevailed. Most of the social
aspects of Ukrainians daily lives remained completely undetected by British
journalists.
In
“The Daily Mirror” and “The Independent” (despite different owners) Ukraine is
presented as a state that does not currently have the ability to withstand the
effects of both the European Union and Russia.
E.
Dzyuba in his “Media-image: Ukrainian perspectives in foreign media” suggests
that, based on the nature of the information in the foreign press reports,
Ukraine appears as a state of “post-Soviet” as a country “gray zone” between
Russia and the European Union. In addition, it (country) is offended by the new
world order, by the fact that it has no place in Europe. Concerning the inner
life, the aliens consider Ukraine corrupt and imperfect democratic, calling the
independence of Ukraine “fragile”. Some articles about the social life of
Ukrainians are only about illegal migration, human trafficking and AIDS [6].
It
is difficult to characterize the state of the research problem of this study
due to the lack of relevant researches on the subject, but finally it has been
determined that Ukraine dependents on foreign information agencies that provide
their interests in certain fields of knowledge through intervention in the
Ukrainian media space. Now Ukraine is unable to resist the intervention.
Ukrainian
politicians, statesmen, journalists need to take seriously the problem of
insecurity of the Ukrainian information space and the problems of forming the
external image of Ukraine, otherwise in the near future the situation is
unlikely to change dramatically.
References:
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Політика і етнологія; Ін-т політичних і етнонаціональних досліджень НАН України.
– К., 2001. – №16. – С. 291–307.
2. Ольшанский Д. В. Политико-психологический словарь. – М.: Академический
Проект, 2002. – 576 с.
3. Сапунов
В. И. Функционирование зарубежных информационных агентств в современной
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/ Сапунов В. И. – Воронеж, 2007. – 38 с.
4. Вплив
ЗМІ на імідж України у світі [Електронний ресурс] // Центр Медіареформ. – 2004.
– Режим доступу до ресурсу: http://www.mediareform.com.ua/article.php?articleID=148.
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«АДЕФ-Україна», 2006 – 210 с.