Abstract

The article presents the application of the framing theory to the analysis of information messages regarding the concept of “fraternal Ukrainian nation” used in the Russian media on the example of two selected (representative) Russian news portals belonging to large TV stations: russian.rt.com and ntv.ru. The author operationalizes the news frameworks generally accepted in media studies: conflict, human interest, responsibility, economy and morality, and adds two new frameworks to them: historical-cultural and stylistic-emotional. Each frame is an interpretative package that gives meaning to the issues and events presented. The conducted research shows that the most frequently used news frame was the conflict frame (80% – russian.rt.com, 62% – ntv.ru), and the least often – the frame of economic consequences (8%, 8%). Relatively rarely – in relation to expectations – the historical and cultural framework was used (28%, 37%). The research allowed to unmask the true information strategy of the Kremlin and the official Russian media in relation to the concept of “fraternal nation”, which was actually aimed at generating the Russian-Ukrainian
conflict.