Invasion of Ukraine: Frames and sentiments in Zelensky’s Twitter communication

Abstract

ABSTRACT In a complex information environment, Russia’s invasion of Ukraine presents major challenges to the communication of the political leader of Ukraine. The objective of this article is to analyze the frames and sentiments used by the president of Ukraine, Volodymyr Zelensky, using a novel data set of his Twitter communication (N = 613) during Russia’s invasion of Ukraine between 24th of February 2022 and 24th of February 2023. The study answers two questions, (1) what the political leader of Ukraine actually talks about when he communicates during the invasion, and (2) how he talks about it. By using a combination of computational text analysis approaches, I analyze the social media framing and whether there is a framing shift during Russia’s invasion of Ukraine and try to understand the role of social media in this process. The results of the study revealed the emotions expressed by Zelensky to be mostly positive and focused on dialogue, cooperations, and solidarity frames. This article shows a minor discourse shift during the Russian invasion of Ukraine and thus contributes to a better understanding of the political leader’s social media communication during the crisis.