Distress narratives in media discourse during the full-scale Russia and Ukraine war in 2022

Abstract The paper addresses conceptualization of the war in Ukraine from two geopolitical perspectives – of the combatant country (Ukraine) and the non-combatant European Union. While media coverage of the war is widespread, there remains a gap in understanding how narratives differ in their framing of distress experiencers (directly affected) and non-experiencers (external observers) across these contexts. A corpus-based verbal framing analysis of the European Union and Ukrainian (English-speaking) media outlets during the first four months of the full-scale Russian invasion of Ukraine in 2022 included: 1) a linguistic approach by identifying conceptual metaphors, and 2) a computer-assisted approach by extracting latent word clusters that constitute frames. The range and scope of conceptual metaphors reveal the framing of distress as an emotion, distress experience, and experiencers during the war, alongside divulging metaphorical frames connected to the economy, politics, or society. Language as a conduit, integrity and its loss, and mental event metaphors stand out in two corpora, uncovering positioning and values. In its turn, Topic Modelling enabled the identification of five frames (“international reaction to the war”, “refugees”, “economy”, “military actions”, and “food crisis”) that intersect in two corpora with a specific focus shift that has evaluative and attitudinal meaning. Computer-assisted frame identification in a broader context, in which distress narratives occur, helps us understand noticeable differences and striking similarities in conceptualizing the war in Ukraine from two perspectives.