Examining the existence of narratives in news reporting : an investigation of the stories told by Russian media within the frame of the Crimean crisis

Abstract: This essay has as its aim to investigate articles deriving from the two news organisations the Moscow Times and Russia Today. The articles examined are treating the Russian inbreak on the Crimean peninsula taking place in march 2014, and the purpose of the examination is to see what narratives are emerging when the news corporations repeatedly are covering the event, and if the two narratives are similar to each other. The analysis will be founded on a mix of theories, on the one hand treating the relationship between media and conflicts on the whole, and on the other discussing how narratives are created and how they are connected to conflicts. Different aspects of what has to be considered when you investigate narratives as well as the implication of different media procedures on conflict reporting will be treated. The analytical finding is that there are two different stories emerging withing the covering of the news corporations, which focus on different aspects of the conflict. One has as its focus mainly the Crimean people and their opinions and relations with Russia, whereas the other story is located on an international level and focuses on the relation between Russia and the West. The last section of this paper discusses the dissimilarities between the narratives and their possible causes, together with a brief summary of the narratives' content.