Zelensky's image in the russian and ukrainian news: Presidential campaign 2019 in ukraine

Abstract

The work explores the portrayal of the sixth president of Ukraine, Volodymyr Zelensky, in Russian and Ukrainian media sources during the pre-electoral campaign in 2019. The study used network analysis, n-grams' generation, and LDA-based topic modeling. The study reveals that Russia's media focused on Zelensky as a media personality, while Ukrainian sources paid attention to the portrayal of a novel popular politician. The target audience of the candidate's campaign was the Russian-speaking population of Ukraine. Media in Ukraine's native language were more inclined to mention elections, the role of the other candidate Petro Poroshenko and the nationalist mood, while defining Zelensky as just an ordinary candidate in an electoral race. The article is based on academic resources concerning the history of the development of political and media contexts in Ukraine, paying particular attention to agenda-setting, framing and priming techniques, and the personality of Volodymyr Zelensky.