Visual images as affective anchors: strategic narratives in Russia’s Channel One coverage of the Syrian and Ukrainian conflicts

ABSTRACT 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.