On Professional Values Under a State of War: Exile Journalists From Ukraine in Russia

Changing Societies and Personalities. 2024. Vol. 8. No. 3. P. 651–664.

Pavel V. Volkov, Olga A. Baysha

This paper discusses the case of exile journalists from Ukraine who moved to Russia between 2014 and 2022. What, in terms of journalistic norms, was unacceptable to them in the Ukrainian journalistic field? What did they find problematic in this respect in Russia? These were the basic questions driving the research, in the course of which 15 exile journalists were interviewed; their answers were analysed using Norman Fairclough’s critical discourse analysis. The findings presented in the paper show that, despite all the difficulties of their personal situations, exile journalist still consider professional values such as independence and truth-telling to be important, continuing to use these normative yardsticks to measure the quality of the journalistic condition. The biggest concern that most of the informants shared was that journalists in both Russia and Ukraine used the language of hatred and discrimination toward political and cultural others, that is so-called antagonistic discourse that only contribute to the spiralling of violence and can never help in reaching peace. These findings allow the suggestion that by occupying a unique position from which to witness the contingency of hegemonic orders exile journalists advocating for peace may re-affirm the values of human dignity and peaceful coexistence, two basic principles of the journalistic profession, as identified by UNESCO.

Keywords: hate speech, journalists, conflict in Ukraine, 21th century Russia, antagonistic discourse, critical discourse analysis