Worldwide Media Visibility of NATO, the European Union, and the United Nations in Connection to the Russia-Ukraine War

Abstract

This article presents a theoretical and descriptive account of the worldwide media visibi l ity of NATO, the European Union, and the United Nations i n connection to the Russia-Ukrai ne war. I formulate a theoretical f ramework that highl ights the authority of the three i nternational organizations (IOs) and thei r actions as the drivers of thei r media visibi l ity. The empi rical analysis is based on a unique dataset that maps, usi ng natural language processi ng tools, the content of more than 2.9 mi l l ion news articles publ ished i n January–September 2022 across vi rtual ly al l states of the world and 60 languages. The empi rical results show that NATO’s i nitial media visibi l ity was high but has decreased signi f icantly over ti me, the EU has mai ntai ned a persistently strong media visibi l ity throughout the period, and the visibi l ity of the UN has been characterized by dynamic developments. These f i ndi ngs have i mportant i mpl ications for the publ ic i mage and the role of the three IOs i n the war.