Media, War and Conflict

This is a quick reminder that Media, War and Conflict will be hosting an ICA preconference on challenges to contemporary conflict reporting. Deadline for abstracts is 31 Jan and you can read the full CfA at bit.ly/mwc2026cfa

WE'RE HAVING A PRECONFERENCE AT ICA IN CAPE TOWN!

Are you a scholar of media, war and conflict? We're having a preconference on the theme of 'Challenges to Contemporary Conflict Reporting" in Cape Town in 2026 and we'd love your abstract!

bit.ly/mwc2026cfa

Great Britain? Constructing great power status through online news reporting of foreign conflict - Natalie Jester, 2025 This article argues that online news coverage of foreign conflict depicts Britain as holding special responsibilities on the world stage, reproducing its status...

My latest article has been published today in @mwcjournal.bsky.social!

Here, I argue that British media reporting on conflict abroad says just as much about domestic political identity, and how Britain still sees itself as a "great power" state.

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Check out my new publication in @mwcjournal.bsky.social - I argue that states use summitry as a digital content to induce ‘digital entitativity’ or to produce their selves as a unitary intentional actor among social media users, by analyzing China’s Twitter content on Xi’s summits.

And finally, "Narratives of conflict: Russian media’s evolving treatment of Ukraine" by Ecaterina Locoman and Richard R Lau examines state-run TV narratives from the 2013 Euromaidan, the annexation of Crimea in 2014, and the periods leading up to and after the 2022 invasion.

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"A fragile narrative: Transformations and consistency in the Russian representation of the war in Ukraine" by Intigam Mamedov looks at core transformations in the Russian narrative of the war in Ukraine.

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"Moral framing in Ukraine war coverage" by John H Parmelee, Nataliya Roman and Berrin Beasley uses computational methods to explore the moral framing of the war.

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"Digitally witnessable war from pereklychka to propaganda: Unfolding Telegram communication during Russia’s war in Ukraine" by Miglė Bareikytė and Mykola Makhortykh explores practices of digital witnessing in platform communities.

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"The effects of the war in Ukraine on the environment of Ukrainian artists: An evaluation by a diagnostic survey" by Józef Ober, Serhii Rusakov and Tetiana Matusevych explores the socioeconomic and cultural challenges facing artists in conflict-affected areas.

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"Framing NATO in China during the 2022 war in Ukraine" by Shixin Ivy Zhang, Zixiu Liu and Altman Yuzhu Peng explores how NATO is presented to Chinese audiences.

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"Personalized, war and peace journalism on Twitter: The Russo-Ukrainian War through the lens of political journalists" by Nina Fabiola Schumacher, Kristin Shi-Kupfer and Christian Nuernbergk looks at the coverage of the war by German political journalists and correspondents.

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"Can encryption save lives? Secure messaging and its infrastructure as loci of convergence between cyber warfare and conventional warfare: The case of Ukraine" by Ksenia Ermoshina and Francesca Musiani revisit debates about the value of encryption in the context of Ukraine.

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"Media coverage of the Russo–Ukraine war beyond the West: Geopolitics and mainstream news in Brazil, India and South Africa" by Antal Wozniak, Zixiu Liu and Fabienne Lind looks at coverage of the conflict in countries outside of the typical Western news markets.

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"Transformation of a war journalist profession: The case of the full-scale Russo–Ukrainian conflict" by Agnieszka Węglińska, Aleksandra Seklecka, Wojciech Peszyński and Bogusław Węgliński looks at changes in the technologies used by Ukrainian journalists.

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We also have quite a few articles looking at media and the war in Ukraine out in OnlinFirst, for scholars following the topic.

"Surrendering to ‘too powerful’ technologies: From the F-111 to the MQ-28 Ghost-Bat drone" by Kathryn Brimblecombe-Fox discusses the airborne drone in relation to concepts of surrender.
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A commentary by Yair Galily, "Balancing national solidarity and journalistic independence in the social media era: The rally-around-the-flag phenomenon among Israeli journalists during the 2024 Gaza war" explores some of the factors impeding Israeli coverage of Gaza.

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"‘Talkin’ ’bout a revolution’? The strategic narratives of the Syrian Democratic Council" by Edoardo Corradi looks at the strategic narratives of the SDC as an example of how non-state actors develop their foreign policy.

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"Space power governance, war and diplomacy: The new challenge for states" by Giacinto D’Urso and Giorgio Giosafatto offers a concept of 'Space Power' as a novel domain of competition.

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New articles this month! Here are some highlights:

‘You’re on your own baby’: Sudanese women bridging conflict, journalism, j’activism, and media (in)visibility by Maha Bashri, Carolyn Walcott and Hala Guta looks at the lived experiences of women journalists in Sudan.

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‘You’re on your own baby’: Sudanese women bridging conflict, journalism, j’activism, and media (in)visibility - Maha Bashri, Carolyn Walcott, Hala Guta, 2025 The ongoing conflict in Sudan has been largely obscured by limited global media coverage that undermines the visibility of violence and displacement felt most s...

Sudan is in crisis yet global media coverage is scarce. Our piece in @mwcjournal.bsky.social You’re on Your Own, Baby - centers j’activists Sudanese women reporting the war when others won’t.

@carolynbwalcott.bsky.social @halaguta.bsky.social
@richardstupart.com
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ICYMI. Media, War and Conflict. Surrendering to ‘too powerful’ technologies: From the F-111 to the MQ-28 Ghost-Bat drone. Kathryn Brimblecombe-Fox.

Against a background of contemporary hyperconnected warfare and accelerating advances in drone/robotic systems, this article discusses the airborne

Phillip Levanthal. "As more countries worldwide develop increasingly hostile environments for journalists, MEXICO'S RESILIENT JOURNALISTS offers insights that transcend its geographic focus."

An excellent review of Julieta Brambila's book in @mwcjournal.bsky.social. tinyurl.com/yfftfm94

Please submit a 250 word abstract complete with author and contact information to akil.awan@rhul.ac.uk by 23 June 2025.

Selected papers from the symposium will be invited to contribute to a special issue, provisionally agreed with the Q1 Sage journal, Media, War & Conflict @mwcjournal.bsky.social

Sage Journals: Discover world-class research Subscription and open access journals from Sage, the world's leading independent academic publisher.

At the risk of beating a dead horse….the paper I published in @mwcjournal.bsky.social about Zelensky and profile news coverage at the beginning of the Russian invasion might put the utter frenzy of news coverage about Trump/Vance’s temper tantrum in the Oval Office this afternoon into perspective.

By complete accident, I happen to be in #Sumy this week in my personal capacity, visiting friends I made as part of an academic exchange between Sumy State University and the University of Liverpool.

Surrendering to ‘too powerful’ technologies: From the F-111 to the MQ-28 Ghost-Bat drone - Kathryn Brimblecombe-Fox, 2025 Against a background of contemporary hyperconnected warfare and accelerating advances in drone/robotic systems, this article discusses the airborne drone in rel...

One of our reviewers' favourite papers of 2025 is now out!

"Surrendering to ‘too powerful’ technologies: From the F-111 to the MQ-28 Ghost-Bat drone" by Kathryn Brimblecombe-Fox

The open access version is available here:
doi.org/10.1177/1750...

Flyer for a hybrid panel event on media and the Ukraine war at Liverpool University on 27 Feb, from 14h30 - 16h30. To sign up, you can go to https://bit.ly/liverpoolmediaukraine The panel description reads: How has the war in Ukraine affected the work and structure of media? This panel brings together journalists, scholars and media professionals for a panel discussing how events in Ukraine have altered the media landscape, the working practices of journalists working in and on the war, and broader struggles over mediating the conflict JOANNA SZOSTEK Senior Lecturer in Political and International Studies at the University of Glasgow OLGA TOKARIUK Journalist and academy associate in the Ukraine Forum at Chatham House NINA KURYATA Ukraine and Defence Editor, Tortoise Media YAROSLAVA BUKHTA DPhil researcher on contemporary knowledge production in war at Oxford

We're having a fantastic (hybrid!) panel on media and the war in Ukraine here at Liverpool next Thursday (27 Feb) with a screening of "1% of war" and Q&A with director Denys Khrystov afterwards.

Registration is at: bit.ly/liverpoolmed...

New Research Explores How Volodymyr Zelensky’s Public Persona Shaped Early Narratives of the Russia-Ukraine War

New research from Annenberg doctoral candidate @lizhallgren.bsky.social analyzes Western media’s fascination with Volodymyr Zelensky in the early months of the Russia-Ukraine war.

@mwcjournal.bsky.social #CommSky

Some good news! We're delighted to have Dr Saumava Mitra from Dublin City University join our editorial team.