THE STRUCTURE OF STRATEGIC COMMUNICATIONS AS A BASIS FOR EFFECTIVE COMMUNICATION MANAGEMENT OF UKRAINE DURING THE WAR
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.29038/2524-2679-2023-02-92-118Keywords:
strategic communications, communication management, reflexive thematic analysis, media reports, generalized components and subcomponents, war, UkraineAbstract
Strategic communications ares one of the manifestations of state power and a tool to achieve national interests in politics and security. Modern conflicts have the form of hybrid actions in the field of information use based on the media and the Internet. The task of strategic communications is to influ- ence public opinion, change cultural values, and adjust the political system by «reprogramming» the political culture. The above offensive actions can significantly affect the defence and security of the state by influencing the public’s consciousness. This article focuses
on the issue of strategic communications of Ukraine during the Russian- Ukrainian war, which began on February 24, 2022. The authors consider strategic communications as a system consisting of invariant and variable components that can be projected in media reports. The authors proceed from the fact that, on the one hand, the media are an instrument of strate- gic communications, and on the other, strategic communications are trans- formed, reflected in media reports. The purpose of the study is to reveal the structure of strategic communications as the basis of communication man- agement, which is characteristic of the period of armed conflict. Reports of the Insider Ukraine Telegram channel during the first 100 days of the war were analyzed. Based on a reflexive thematic analysis, using a one-way dispersion analysis, it has been found that the strategic communications of Ukraine during the war period consist of the following invariant compo- nents: interactive communications of Ukraine, operational communications of Ukraine, extraoperational communications of Ukraine, operational and extraoperational communications concerning the RF. These generalized components have their sub-components, the intensity or total absence of which in media reports can be related to specific events of the war peri- od. This study contributes to the understanding of the structure of strategic communications in general and during the war in particular. The analysis of Internet communications should be considered as a part of strategic com- munications management, included in the process of strategic planning of the country’s defence and security.
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