After the end of the Cold War, US – Russia relations have been fluctuating. In recent years, they have been deteriorating, partly because of the annexation of Crimea by Russia in March 2014. The...Show moreAfter the end of the Cold War, US – Russia relations have been fluctuating. In recent years, they have been deteriorating, partly because of the annexation of Crimea by Russia in March 2014. The portrayal in the media of the other has become increasingly negative in both states, and public opinion polls show that an increasing number of Americans and Russians saw each other as “unfavourable” in the months after the annexation. The purpose of this thesis is to examine how the annexation was framed in both American and Russian news. It employs a deductive framing analysis, using five pre-defined, issue-specific frames, that were derived from the literature. The dataset consists of two articles each out of two Russian and two American newspapers. The thesis concludes that American and Russian news have framed the annexation differently: American news framed the annexation as an aggressive Russian act, whereas Russian news framed it as a result of the Crimean people freely expressing their will to reunite with Russia. As media has an influence on public opinion, the results of this research partly explain the decline of respective favourability in public opinion.Show less
