Features of the Media Coverage of the Russian Military Campaign in Syria in the Federal Mass Media: Evidence from Channel One, Rossiya-1, and NTV

This paper analyzes features of the federal TV coverage of the military operation conducted by Russia on the territory of the Middle East, particularly in Syria since September 2015. This study carried out by the content analysis to identify codes, used in mediatextes of television news programs and the connection between them. The work consists of two chapters: the first theoretical chapter contains a conceptualization of the concept "media coverage of the military campaign" and operationalization of measurable indicators. The second chapter identify semantic units used by three television channels in the coverage of Russian military campaign in Syria and builds a network of relationships between them, also it compare the changes in the character and number of codes to foreign political events on the timeline. Also in this chapter we compare the character of codes allocated to each of the channels and reveal the common and differing codes. As a result, this research can identify features of the approach and the building the media agenda of the Russian federal pro-government channels toward military actions of the Russian army outside of Russian Federation.