Emotions and war on YouTube: affective investments in RT’s visual narratives of the conflict in Syria

Abstract

Recent scholarship claims that narratives and images of war have political effects, not simply because of their content and ‘form’, but because of their affective and emotional ‘forces’. Yet, International Relations scholars rarely explore how audiences respond to narratives and images of war in their research. Addressing this gap, this paper combines discourse analysis of RT (formerly Russia Today) ‘breaking news’ YouTube videos of Russian military intervention in Syria with analysis of 750 comments and social media interactions on those videos. Our findings demonstrate how RT layers moral and legal justifications for Russian intervention in multiple audio-visual formats, within a visual narrative of the conflict that relies on affective representations of key actors and events. Viewers largely approve of the content, replicate its core narratives and express emotions coherent with RT’s affective representation of the Syrian conflict. Audiences’ responses to these narratives and images of war were shaped by their affective investments in the identities and events portrayed on-screen. These affective investments are therefore crucial in understanding the political significance of images of armed conflict.

Acknowledgement

This research was part of the ‘Reframing Russia for the Global Mediasphere: From Cold War to ‘Information War’?’ project funded by the UK’s Arts and Humanities Research Council, ref: AH/P00508X/1.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Notes

1 Given that the third video in our study had less than 300 comments we studied a sample of 150 comments: the 50 most and least popular, and a random sample of 50 comments.

2 ‘Are you Syrious? ‘Putin admits Russia’s aiding Syrian army in war’—western media claim’ (05/09/15); ‘‘We need to abandon double standards to combat ISIS’—Putin’ (15/09/15); ‘Russia to consider sending troops to Syria if requested’ (18/09/15)

3 ‘COMBAT CAM: First video of Russian airstrikes on ISIS in Syria’ (30/09/15); ‘Russian military forces start airstrikes against ISIS in Syria’ (30/09/15)

4 RT: ‘Russian military forces start airstrikes against ISIS in Syria’, https://youtu.be/r11oHeV92nU, Length 13:49, Published 30^th September, 2015. As at 9^th January, 2018: 1,095,325 views; 2801 comments; 4116 upvotes; 341 downvotes

5 It includes as if comparable to mainstream US and UK newspapers, a headline from the right-wing US political website, Daily Signal. This is an overtly politically partisan site funded by conservative think tank The Heritage Foundation https://www.dailysignal.com/daily-signal/

6 RT: ‘BREAKING: Putin orders start of Russian military withdrawal from Syria’, https://youtu.be/5rCwhYshgw8, Length 9:30, Published 14^th March 2016. As at 9^th January, 2018: 183,345 views; 2017 comments; 1600 upvotes; 140 downvotes.

7 “Putin: internationally-agreed ceasefire in Syria is having a positive effect”; “President Putin orders bulk of Russian military force to start withdrawing from Syria”; “Putin: Russia’s military mission in Syria has been accomplished”; “Putin: Russian military withdrawal from Syria should facilitate peace process there”; “Putin: permanent Russian military sites in Syria will remain and will be defended”; “Putin: Syria pullout agreed with President Assad who thanked Russia for help”.

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Rhys Crilley

Rhys Crilley is a Post-Doctoral Research Associate in Global Media and Communication at The Open University, UK, where he works on the AHRC-funded ‘Reframing Russia’ project. His research explores the intersections of popular culture, social media and global politics with a specific interest in war and legitimacy. Rhys has published several journal articles and he is currently working on writing his first monograph on the legitimation of war on social media. He tweets at @rhyscrilley. Email: [email protected]

Precious N. Chatterje-Doody

Precious N. Chatterje-Doody is a Lecturer in Politics and International Studies at Open University, UK. Her multidisciplinary research interests centre on questions of communication, soft power, identity and security, particularly in relation to Russia. She has published articles in Politics, Critical Studies on Security, and Media and Communication, and her monographs, ‘The Russian identity riddle: Unwrapping Russia’s security policy,’ and ‘RT and Conspiracy Theory’ (with Dr. Ilya Yablokov, Leeds University) are due to be published by Routledge in 2020-21. She tweets at @PreciousChatD. Email: [email protected]