Framing of the Great Famine (An Gorta Mor) in Ireland (1845-1849s) and Holodomor (1932-1933s) in Ukraine in the British Mainstream Press

Abstract

The paper seeks to develop new avenues of the study of the British press regarding the coverage of mass famines in the former colonies of the UK and Russia (the Soviet Union), respectively: Ireland and Ukraine. For the first time ever, we employ a framing analysis (Semetko; Valkenburg, 2000) for the coverage of the Great Famine (An Gorta Mor) in Ireland (1845-1849s) and the Holodomor in Ukraine (1932-1933s) on the basis of the British press. Thus, this study is a pioneering transnational comparative research of press framing of the great famines in the world in a diachronic dimension. The research hypothesis of our study is that the British “elite” (quality press) and popular (“anti-establishment”) newspapers pursued divergent news framing in illuminating these famines. We argue that the British quality press pursued the common news framing by emphasizing “the economic consequences frame”. Specifically, these newspapers (and more specifically - “The Times”) accentuated the economic dimension, causes of the famines both in Ireland (in 1843-1847), and Ukraine (in 1932-1933s). On the contrary, the British anti-establishment press (specifically, “The Manchester Guardian” ) practiced “the morality frame” by appealing to moral responsibility of the respective political and economic stakeholders (specifically, “opinion leaders”, politicians and statesmen both in the UK and more broadly - in the West). Thus, they tried to draw attention of the Western politicians, stakeholders, “opinion leaders” to humanitarian dimension of these tragedies. Moreover, as we argue, these newspapers practiced victimization narrative in covering and analyzing this problematic. The British journalist (of the Welsh origin) Gareth Jones, the “Manchester Guardian” foreign correspondent, who uncovered “uncomfortable truth” about the Great Famine in Ukraine in 1932-1933s, epitomizes the latter pattern of “morality framing.” The findings of our transnational diachronic comparative research will provide a great insight into propaganda, media perceptions and portrayal of the stateless nations in the Western press in retrospective.