Study Part II: Stories dismiss Ukraine-Russia peace efforts
I recently conducted a small study that examines language usage in coverage of the Ukraine-Russia war. It’s not surprising that traditional/war language outnumbered peace/peace journalism language 5 to 1. (See above, previous blog, for details). Next, I looked at the language used in articles that did discuss peace. Was this language dismissive? See Part II of my study below.--Ed

Findings: R2-Language Dismissing Peace
In addition to being outnumbered almost exactly 5 to 1, the stories containing the peace/peace journalism terms most closely associated with reaching a settlement often included word choices that indicate a framing that dismisses peace and peace settlement.

A second set of searches (R2) was conducted in Nexis Uni during March, 2023 that focused on the word choice and framing of stories that contained words that indicated a discussion within that story of a possible settlement to the war. The settlement terms searched, as indicated in Chart 1, were “peace talks,” “negotiations,” “cease fire,” and “treaty.” These four terms totaled 3431 total hits. The second search (R2) was done using “dismissive terms”—words that, if present, would indicate a framing that dismisses, marginalizes, and criticizes efforts at a settlement. The dismissive terms searched were “impossible,” “not realistic,” “favors Russia,” and “benefits Russia.” For example, within the search findings for “Russia Ukraine War,” the second search sought stories using both the terms “negotiation” and “impossible,” and then “negotiation and “not realistic,” “negotiation” and “favors Russia,” and “negotiation” and “benefits Russia.” Then, the same was done for the other three settlement terms—“cease fire,” “peace talks,” and “treaty.”

See chart below.

Chart 2: Prevalence of Dismissive Terms

Settlement term	Number hits	Number of dismissive term hits within each settlement term	% of stories w/settlement and dismissive term
Negotiation	647	425	65.6
Cease fire	329	147	44.6
Peace talks	889	241	27.1
Treaty	1566	624	39.8
TOTAL	3431	1437	41.8

NOTES:
Breakdown of dismissive terms for each settlement term:

a. Negotiation-Impossible 75; Not realistic 34; Favors Russia 149; Benefits Russia 167
b. Cease fire—Impossible 25, Not realistic 15; Favors Russia 43; Benefits Russia 66
c. Peace talks—Impossible 51; Not realistic 3; Favors Russia 69; Benefits Russia 118
d. Treaty—Impossible 147, Not realistic 35; Favors Russia 237; Benefits Russia 205

While not present in all articles discussing a possible settlement, the wide use of dismissive terms in 41.8% of settlement articles is enough to confirm the hypothesis H2, “Word usage within stories discussing a settlement will indicate a framing that is anti-settlement.”

Next week, we’ll take a look at a discussion of these findings, as well as possible solutions.