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"Offers us an excellent opportunity to reflect on and deepen our understanding of the complex ways in which today's media and communication ecology enter into contemporary conflicts. Notwithstanding the state power plays evident in the Ukrainian conflict and redolent perhaps of an earlier Cold War period, the surrounding terrain of media and communications has in fact moved on. New information technologies and evolving hybrid media (both 'old' and 'new' in dynamic interaction and increasing imbrication), argues Pantti, have reshaped both the conduct and space of modern wars. This has served to increase the range of views, voices and vantage points informing the narratives of conflict and their contending frames and counterframes; ... based on the original research of its contributors provides its own vantage point from which to better appraise the multiple and complex ways in which media and communications represented and entered into the Ukrainian conflict. Moreover, the questions that are posed and pursued have relevance not only for the Ukrainian conflict but the changing nature of war reporting globally. As Pantti astutely asks in her introduction, and invites us all to consider: What does 'information war,' 'media propaganda' or 'media diplomacy' mean in the contemporary digital media environment? How are traditional mass media and new media forms and technologies involved in information war? How does media serve as a means by which various actors manage and communicate a conflict? What kinds of knowledge and understanding do the narratives and framings of conflict provide their audiences? The different studies and research insights offered by the contributing scholars to this timely volume help provide answers to these crucial questions and by so doing open up a new and necessary vantage point on the play of communication power in the Ukrainian conflict and in respect of today's fast-changing communication environment--Preface

Introduction: disasters and the media: why now? -- Perspectives on disasters: globalization, citizenship, and emotion -- Media and disasters in a global age -- The geopolitics of disaster coverage -- Emotional discourses in disaster news -- Making disasters mean and politically matter -- Producing news, witnessing disasters -- Compassion, nation and cosmopolitan imagination -- Disaster citizenship and the assumption of state responsibility -- Anger and accountability in disaster news -- Transformations in disaster visibility -- Conclusion

This study explores the question of the blurring of traditional boundaries between the personal and the professional in relation to images tweeted during the Ukraine conflict. The study focuses on two Moscow-based correspondents, Shaun Walker and Alec Luhn, and a photojournalist, Paul Hansen, all of whom created parallel conflict narratives on Twitter while reporting on the Ukraine conflict for legacy newspapers. Their use of Twitter is examined here in the context of "personalised reporting" that allows for more opinion and displays of emotion than are typically acceptable in traditional news reporting. The results demonstrate the coexistence of the traditional media's visualisation of conflict with that driven by social media logic. ; Peer reviewed

This cross-national study analyzes the visual construction of the Syrian crisis in the quality press of seven countries. The crisis has held the world's attention for over two and a half years and provides a compelling case study due to the difficulties professional journalists have in covering its events as well as the Syrian opposition's innovative social media strategies, which focus on the dissemination of eyewitness images. Moreover, there are stark divisions in the political discussion about how to respond to the mounting crisis – a discussion fueled by footage uploaded to social media sites by opposition activists. There is however little empirical evidence of how the conflict has been made visible in the international media, or how Syrian activists' images figure in this mediated visibility. The study compares the use of visual imagery in The Guardian (UK), Helsingin Sanomat (Finland), La Repubblica (Italy), Romania Libera (Romania), El País (Spain), Kommersant (Russia), and Hürriyet (Turkey). It asks how mainstream newspapers visually construct a conflict when the access of professional media to the conflict zone is restricted, but an abundance of non-traditional visual source material is being made available by activists. ; Peer reviewed

This article engages with current discussions about public emotions by examining journalists' perceptions of the value of emotional expression in broadcast news. First, the study provides insight into how journalists assess the place and role of emotion in news reporting and the perceived emotionalizing of news. Second, it examines how the journalists' discourse about emotion is linked to their ideas of 'good journalism', as well as to their professional self-image. The data consist of in-depth interviews with television journalists working for both public service and commercial news programmes in Finland and in the Netherlands.

This chapter discusses the role of media and communications play in the construction of disasters. The construction of disasters refers to the meaning-making and political action related to disasters. The chapter addresses the relationship between communication, media and disasters from four perspectives. First, it explores the changing conceptions of disasters, in particular the definitional power of humanitarian discourses. Second, it examines the role of media and humanitarian communication in sustaining various political and economic interests. Third, this chapter explores how new media technologies have contributed to the visibility of disasters and to the empowerment of disaster-affected people. Fourth, the chapter addresses the role of disaster narratives in shaping how people make sense of disasters and the ways in which disasters are managed and responded to. ; Peer reviewed

This article explores and compares the visual images used by Channel One (Ch1), Russia's biggest state-aligned television broadcaster, to justify Russia's intervention in two major geopolitical conflicts in recent history: the armed conflict in eastern Ukraine and Syria's civil war. The data reveal that while Ch1's projection of Ukrainian conflict is anchored in compassion to the Eastern Ukraine population speaking the Russian language, the Syrian war is framed to fuel the feeling of national pride by focusing on the Russian greatness as a political and military superpower. This research, thus, extends the theoretical understanding of media representation of war, especially how the changing political context impacts which identities are represented and made potent through different emotional appeals. The article conceptualises visual images as affective anchors that can be used to reactivate collective memory and dominant discourses and construct emotional relationships between the audience and mediated events. ; Peer reviewed

The crisis in Ukraine has accentuated the position of Russian television as the government's strongest asset in its information warfare. The internet, however, allows other players to challenge the Kremlin's narrative by providing counter-narratives and debunking distorted information and fake images. Accounting for the new media ecology—through which strategic narratives are created and interpreted, this article scrutinizes the narratives of allegedly fake news on Channel One, perceiving the fabricated stories as extreme projections of Russia's strategic narratives, and the attempts of the Ukrainian fact-checking website Stopfake.org to counter the Russian narrative by refuting misinformation and exposing misleading images about Ukraine. Secondly, it analyses how Twitter users judged the veracity of these news stories and contributed to the perpetuation of strategic narratives. ; Peer reviewed

Ajatus "lähelle pääsemisestä" toistuu journalistisissa kolumneissa, juhlapuheissa ja strategiapapereissa. Läheisyydestä on tullut journalistinen strategia. Yksi uusista keinoista tuottaa journalismiin läheisyyttä on monenlaisen yleisöaineiston hyödyntäminen. Tässä artikkelissa keskitymme erityisesti kriisi- ja onnettomuusuutisissa julkaistuun kuvalliseen yleisöaineistoon, eli niin sanottuihin amatöörikuviin. Tarkastelemme amatöörikuvien läheisyyteen liittyviä merkityksiä sekä toimittajien että yleisön näkökulmasta. Näissä tulkinnoissa tulee esiin, että amatöörikuvien läheisyys perustuu etenkin niiden ajallis-tilalliseen ja tunteelliseen ulottuvuuteen. Yleisö ottaa kuitenkin toimittajia enemmän etäisyyttä siihen tapaan, jolla näitä ulottuvuuksia on koetettu uutisorganisaatioissa hyödyntää strategisesti.

This study is concerned with the memories that Estonians have of watching Finnish television during the last decades of the Soviet occupation. We will look at the practices of watching Finnish television in Soviet Estonia and the meanings attributed to it. Finnish television took North-Estonians into a colourful world of consumption and entertainment, while educating them about Western values and encouraging them to dream of a better future. We identify four ways that North-Estonians remember Finnish television (and its programmes): as an event, as a means of distinction, as a window to a world of affluence, and as a tool of democratic education.

This study is concerned with the memories that Estonians have of watching Finnish television during the last decades of the Soviet occupation. We will look at the practices of watching Finnish television in Soviet Estonia and the meanings attributed to it. Finnish television took North-Estonians into a colourful world of consumption and entertainment, while educating them about Western values and encouraging them to dream of a better future. We identify four ways that North-Estonians remember Finnish television (and its programmes): as an event, as a means of distinction, as a window to a world of affluence, and as a tool of democratic education.

This study is concerned with the memories that Estonians have of watching Finnish television during the last decades of the Soviet occupation. We will look at the practices of watching Finnish television in Soviet Estonia and the meanings attributed to it. Finnish television took North-Estonians into a colourful world of consumption and entertainment, while educating them about Western values and encouraging them to dream of a better future. We identify four ways that North-Estonians remember Finnish television (and its programmes): as an event, as a means of distinction, as a window to a world of affluence, and as a tool of democratic education. ; Peer reviewed