Discursive Construction of the Arab-Israeli Conflict in the Russian Media

The aim of this paper is to investigate the discursive construction of a new round of the Arab-Israeli conflict, which began in October 2023, in ten media outlets in Russia. The study of Russian media coverage of this confrontation appears particularly relevant due to the ambiguity of Russian positioning in the context of the conflict, which can also be manifested in the media discourse about the phenomenon. The study was conceptualised on the basis of works devoted to the concept of discourse, media coverage of military conflicts, the specificity of the Russian media system, the classification of media into mainstream and alternative, and the strategies of Russian foreign policy positioning, including within the framework of the Arab-Israeli confrontation. Using N. Fairclough's three-level critical discourse analysis, the discourse on the conflict in the five most popular mainstream and five most popular alternative Russian media was characterised. Differences in the coverage of confrontation in the two groups of publications were identified, which were then compared with current media and social realities in Russia. The results revealed that mainstream media tend to broadcast the spectrum of the ambiguous official Russian position on the conflict, which can imply both diverse interpretation of events and blaming Israel with jastification of Hamas. Alternative media, on the contrary, more often deviate from the official interpretation of the phenomenon, providing more varied and conflicting messages, and vindicate Israel's policy while criticising Hamas. Overall, the discourses of the two groups of publications are significantly distanced from each other, which may strengthen the standing of the current political regime in Russia. Future work could broaden the lens of the research by examining the discursive construction of this and other conflicts in countries with social contexts similar to Russia's, as well as in states with different realities.