Keywords

Introduction

The method of analysis of this study is narrative analysis. It is complemented by a framing analysis, the latter which intends to give an overview of how problems and solutions are addressed and constructed in the news coverage of the two Russian state news channels, RT and Sputnik, that broadcast for an international audience in English. The two methods, framing analysis and narrative analysis, are also compared in order to bring out their strengths and weaknesses. The chapter is centered on narrative analysis. Narrative analysis is particularly useful in a study where the ambition is to make manifest what bearing the construction of news stories has on the meaning making, in this case. The narratives studied are state-supported strategic narratives (Miskimmon et al., 2017). The messages of the news are relevant to the question of how Russian state-affiliated news channels depict Sweden, but of equal significance is how the news are narrated. Therefore, each plot of the coverage, e.g. the storytelling of the individual news pieces/articles, was analyzed in-depth to identify both the features of the plot and how these are connected and structure the plot. The plots were then grouped together which led to the definition of the narratives.

Defining “narrative” and Strategic Narratives

Narratives in their most simple form are storytelling. They focus on a sequence of events where an aspect of the status quo is breached as a result of an impetus, which could be a problem, and there is progress to a new point of status quo (in some cases a resolution) or a restoration of equilibrium. In line with Bruner, this book defines narrative as:

a sequence of events that carries meaning and is justified, at least in part, by the fact that it somehow violates what is normal or expected. We do not narrate all the details of any circumstance; what we choose to narrate is generally noteworthy because it stands out by posing a problem or exception. The point of the narrative is to resolve the imbalance or uncertainty of the problem and to restore equilibrium. (Patterson & Monroe, 1998, p. 320, referring to Bruner, 1996)

The everyday disinformation that this study explores is perceived as a strategic narrative. The term “strategic” assumes an understanding of intent, meaning that there is determination and an objective behind the narrative. The term does not indicate that the intent is either malicious or benign, but only that the narrative has direction and purpose. However, in the context of Russian disinformation, strategic narratives refer to stories being told to achieve political influence over target countries. Accordingly, they are defined as: “a means by which political actors attempt to construct a shared meaning of the past, present, and future of international politics to shape the behavior of domestic and international actors” (Miskimmon et al., 2017).

Studying Narrative: Narrative Analysis

Narrative offers a route to insight about the appeal and resonance of disinformation (see Ruston, 2017). Narratives are central to how humans make sense of the world and award significance (Branigan, 1992; Bruner, 1991; De Fina & Georgakopoulou, 2011; Fisher, 1984), and central to identity formation (Polkinghorne, 1988). It is by understanding narratives as systems that we can gain a closer understanding of the relationships between narratives that span time or place, or audiences. Because of the link between narrative and identity (Polkinghorne, 1988; Somers, 1994; Spence, 1983), and narrative and decision-making (Ruston, 2017; Winterbottom et al., 2008), a thorough analysis of malicious narratives calls attention to narratives as security practices. Telling stories about “the other” has the potential to alienate states from one another, or to bring about rapprochement and create alliances between them. In this sense, constructing or disseminating strategic narratives has real-world consequences for national and international politics. This study views the role and significance of narratives as similar to the three roles defined by Ruston (2017). He writes that narratives are critically important not only because they are systems of stories, and as such sociocultural objects, but because “a narrative is also a mode of comprehension”. Narratives carry and create values and ideologies, but they are also to be considered practices in that they “structure consequences, meaning, and significance through the relationships of the actions/event, actors/agents, and referents operating within the system” (Ruston, 2017, p. 28).

In other words, narratives are systems that involve actors, events, locations, and temporality, and that cohere within a structure of conflict, desire, action, and resolution. Through the relationships between the constituent stories and their structures, narratives embody specific values and provide cognitive templates for understanding contemporary events and situations. In addition, narratives are relationally constructed in that they take on meaning and have impact only when they interact and relate to other narratives, or are connected to personal and collective identities (Archetti, 2018). They must not be seen as messages, packaged and transmitted from sender to receiver; nor should they be expected to be received like a “hypodermic needle model of communication” (Archetti, 2018, p. 233 referring to Rogers, 2003, p. 303). Thus, while studies of disinformation that trace the flow and amplification of topics are important, they lack analysis of how topics take on meaning through the connectivity of their constituent parts and through storytelling structures, and therefore tend to overlook critical elements of how disinformation might resonate with key groups or invite identification with audiences.

Narratives, in particular strategic narratives, contain features that might stir strong responses of either appeal or repulsion. Narratives call for less cognitive interpretation, prior insight, or knowledge than rational discourse (Fisher, 1984). A convincing narrative might be built on personal experience and not on what is scientifically known, what experts claim, or what can be logically or rationally reasoned. Nor must narratives provide accounts of different and opposing arguments and viewpoints, or present various perspectives in order to have political significance. Even if arguments can be part of narratives, the kind of communication that centers on narratives rather than rational discourse might downplay critical arguments and debates where different sides of a question are juxtaposed, and treat opposite views as disruptions or outright threats to the coherence of the story. It is much more difficult to build convincing and coherent narratives with several contrasting viewpoints. In new patterns of media consumption where people are increasingly consuming news that they personally seek out, rather than as passive recipients of mass media output provided for them, opposing narratives can be filtered out or, if recognized at all, be treated as hostile. Acceptance of opposing viewpoints as equally valid is likely to diminish. It has been suggested that one purpose of harmful strategic narratives targeted at foreign audiences is to destabilize democratic societies by reinforcing and enhancing polarization.

How Messages Are Embedded in Narratives

The underlying idea behind undertaking a narrative analysis is that meaning is constructed through narratives and that an analysis of narratives can extract these meanings and expose them. A narrative analysis therefore aims to answer questions about both what is being told in the story and how the story is being told (Chatman, 1978, Robertson, 2005, p. 221); and, by combining the two, to identify the messages they contain. In this analysis, I am interested in what the Russian state media reported about Sweden, but also in learning about the meanings that were produced through the news reports. Narrative analysis is especially suitable for helping to answer such questions. The way in which the story is told is key to learning about how messages are produced.

In contrast to other similar methods of qualitative content analysis, narrative analysis aims to trace the meaning making of the text through its temporal and spatial aspects. It is through the momentum of the text, the chronology, and the way in which the different components of the text are linked together in sequences that the story takes on meaning. A narrative can in this sense be likened to a theater play where the story to be told by the actors on the stage has a definite starting point (a situation of status quo) which is transformed by the introduction of an event, dilemma, or intervening incident/factor. The breach of the status quo moves the play forward and eventually reaches a conclusion where a new status quo is established. For the narrative to be driven forward and gain momentum, there must be intervening actors, and there is also a stage or space on which the actors are positioned in relation to one another, but also to the context, the space, the temporality, and the problem. The aim of the analysis is to deconstruct and define the basic structure of the narrative of each article. This is referred to as the plot. In order to identify and thereby disclose the meaning of the narrative, the plots are analyzed and aggregated into patterns that stretch over numerous articles published over an extended period. The narrative is thus an aggregation of plots.

Sampling News About Three Themes: Climate Change, Public Health, and Moral Values and Ethics

The narratives selected for analysis were those produced by the two key actors: the two Russian state-controlled media outlets, Sputnik and RT. These are known to be part of the Kremlin’s media operation and are often referred to as “weapons of information” in Russia’s attacks on the West (see Chap. 2). They were selected for analysis because they have been engaged in disinformation about Sweden for several years and, until the spring of 2022, were easily and freely accessible to a Swedish audience through the internet. It was no secret that these media outlets were intended to work as Russian propaganda and cultivators of disinformation with the intention of harming Western societies, Sweden included. This section presents the material and samples used for the analysis.

To enable an in-depth exploration of the narratives of RT and Sputnik, a decision was made to limit the empirical analysis to news coverage of three themes: the environment and/or climate change, referred to as the environment; public health; and moral values and ethics; as well as to material published between July 1, 2019 and January 31, 2021. These are broad themes that cover topical issues, but which do not necessarily include sensational news or dramatic events, or themes that are antagonistic in themselves. Topics such as crime, law, and order and immigration were rejected on those grounds, and because they were predicted to be more blatantly derogatory. I wanted categories that would cover different aspects of the Russian output, which would reveal underlying values, and are perhaps more resistant to change (values, morals, ethics) and touch on issues where Russia tends to be critical of the West. It is for example well established that the Russian government has for many years denigrated the West, using moral and ethical arguments that depict it as decadent. Environmental issues and climate change are subjects where Russia might use its inferior position to show that the West while proclaiming itself to be best in class, has flaws and shortcomings—perhaps by not being as independent of fossil fuels and good at limiting pollution as proclaimed. The chosen themes were therefore believed to provide a satisfying variety of issues and a relatively broad scope of news to be analyzed.

As coding and analysis of the material progressed, it became increasingly obvious that the third theme, on moral values and ethics, offered the most interesting and relevant news reports for the purposes of the study, but also that it was too broadly defined. It garnered a set of disparate and varied news items about topics ranging from anti-Semitism to IKEA’s Christmas advertising campaign. A closer look at the selected news on the theme, however, found that they were better categorized as culture, gender, and (anti-)liberalism. The common denominator was that they all raised questions about identity and underlying values, most often in connection with the Swedish nation. The themes analyzed in the study from this point on, and which formed the structure of the analysis throughout, were therefore: climate change, public health, gender, culture (tradition and national heritage), and (anti-)liberalism.

The Sample Used for Analysis

News items were selected if their main content was on any one of the three themes, they depicted Sweden and were published between July 1, 2019 and January 31, 2021. The theme of public health was almost entirely centered on Covid-19 and the climate change items were almost all about Greta Thunberg, the globally recognized Swedish then-teenaged climate activist. The other topics covered more varied content. The Sputnik items were found on the Sputnik news archive on its website. The RT items were intended to represent not only RT, but also televised items about Sweden. These were accessed through the internet archive using the search words Sweden and Swedish. This search yielded only a few television items about Sweden during the time period with particular reference to the three themes. It appears that RT television programming covered only one major question about Sweden at a time, which at that particular time were the legal proceedings against Julian Assange and related events. The number of RT items of relevance for the study therefore ended up being quite small. Tables 4.1 and 4.2 show the distribution of themes in the two news channels.

Table 4.1 Corpus: Sputnik Sweden
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Table 4.2 Corpus: RT Sweden
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Analysis of Sources

The first level of analysis sought to identify the distribution of sources in the news articles. Identifying and analyzing the sources used is of particular interest, since Sputnik rarely publishes stories written by its own journalists. Its staff members have little or no presence at the location of events and do not conduct interviews, what Widholm terms desk reporting (2016). Instead, Sputnik base their articles on Swedish media sources. By identifying the sources used, we can learn more about how Sputnik and RT interact with the Swedish media ecosystem.

It was asked to what extent the sources used were domestic or foreign, or whether the Russian media behave like international news media reporting about Sweden as a foreign country or were more like domestic media. It has been argued that Russian state media tend to link up with domestic alt-right media. A question was therefore asked about the use by Sputnik and RT of Swedish mainstream and public service media relative to alternative or fringe media.

In addition, because it is often claimed that RT and Sputnik represent anti-establishment media, it was interesting to find out whether there were a greater number of ordinary people and activists represented in the stories than political and economic elite or establishment spokespeople. Finally, it was asked in what ways different news themes relied on experts as sources.

Framing Analysis

The second level of analysis was a framing analysis. The intention was to find out how issues were depicted within each theme, and qualitative framing analysis made it possible to include all the items and categorize the results. The distribution of frames also aimed to provide a context in which the narratives could be related in terms of amount of coverage or the frequency with which a certain problem was depicted.

Framing is a method that seeks to identify the core message of a text and explore how it acquires meaning through the way in which it is presented. One of its main proponents defines framing in an oft-cited quote:

Framing essentially involves selection and salience. To frame is to select some aspects of a perceived reality and make them more salient in a communicating text, in such a way as to promote a particular problem definition, causal interpretation, moral evaluation, and/or treatment recommendation for the item described. (Entman, 1993, p. 52)

Framing therefore defines the nature of the problem described in a particular text and how it is depicted, and therefore moves beyond the mere denotative level of analysis to focus on how a news item connotes meaning. Framing is an organizing principle that gives meaning to texts and, as Reese writes, frames “work symbolically to meaningfully structure the social world” (Reese in Reese et al., 2003, p. 11).

Entman (1993) provides a set of generic questions that can be used in almost any type of analysis. These include questions about the definition of the problem, the causes of the problem, how the agents involved and their performance should be evaluated, what solutions or remedies suggested are justified, and what the expected results are. Other scholars propose standard frames derived from previous framing analyses, such as a conflict frame, the attribution of responsibility frame, the economic consequences frame, or the human interest frame (see Scheufele, 1999, p. 106; Neuman et al., 1992, p. 64, Semetko & Valkenburg, 2000).

A news item about the Covid-19 crisis, for instance, might, depending on how it is being reported, be framed as medical news, a political crisis, an anti-immigration piece, a gender-related piece, and so on. A framing analysis can identify patterns of messaging that cut across topics and present different issues as similar problems. The content categorized according to frames will give a picture of the problems, solutions, and values that give meaning to the content and move beyond the mere topic (the denotative level of meaning making). This appeared to be an especially useful method in the case of Sputnik, since previous research has found that the coverage is characterized by a small number of very strong patterns or routines for how news items are packaged and structured (Wagnsson & Barzanje, 2021). Framing analysis can be applied as both a quantitative and a qualitative method. Even with a distribution of frames according to categories and with numbers, the analysis to determine the framing was qualitative and still involved a relatively high degree of interpretation.

Based on a first round of coding of narrative features (see A to F below), each article was assigned a frame, which was developed inductively. This comprised a summary of the content at a generic level. For example, a story about IKEA receiving a storm of criticism for supposedly calling their December campaign a “holidays campaign” instead of a “Christmas campaign” was summarized as: “IKEA has gone too far in adapting to the non-Christian population: strong negative reactions from people”. Based on the frames identified, categories were developed giving four or five frames for each of the five themes. Each item was then assigned a maximum of two framing categories. The IKEA article for example was coded as the framing category: “selling out Sweden”. Before describing the narrative method of analysis, the next section deepens understanding of framing analysis and explains its relation to narrative analysis.

How Framing Analysis Differs from Narrative Analysis

As was discussed above, framing analysis is useful for revealing how problems are defined, solutions presented, and responsibilities assigned to different actors. It seeks to delineate the node around which a message or discourse is centered. Framing as a phenomenon dates back to Erving Goffman’s writing (1974) about how people seek influence and strive to reach their goals by way of communication. He did not engage with media, but other scholars found his theories useful in relation to mediated communication. Gamson and Modigliani (1989, p. 3) defined a frame as “a central organizing idea …. for making sense of relevant events, suggesting what is at issue”. Since this might also be seen as way to describe news journalism, framing became connected with journalism. As the concept was brought into the study of media and communication, most notably by Entman (1993), it was developed into a methodology applied to analysis of how media and mediated communication exercise influence and power. Framing became a way to conceive of power and influence. It was argued that political agents who managed to frame issues and problems in ways that made them more attractive could strengthen their power positions, and would be better placed than their counterparts to gain popularity, win elections, or influence political decision making. Scholars of critical theory would add that the major media institutions, by way of their media logics or for political-economic reasons, would contribute to and reinforce the dominant framing and make it more difficult for other frames to gain attention (see e.g. McKnight & McNair, 2012). The same logic might be applied to Russian disinformation, albeit from a foreign perspective and with malign intent. For example, if RT and Sputnik repeatedly frame news about migration to Sweden as crime stories, and the frame comes to dominate the Swedish media networks, this constrains politicians from discussing migration from other perspectives, as something other than criminal activity, at least without being forced to explain why.

In this sense the framing of a problem has consequences for which solutions might be acceptable and legitimate for resolving the problem, who to hold accountable and to whom the public will turn for solutions. Framing analysis can trace and explain how social issues and problems are constructed and how frames differ between opposing parties, sometimes in the form of frame games or “framing contests” (Entman, 2003, p. 417), and the possible social and political consequences.

One advantage of framing analysis is its fairly strict focus on how problems and solutions are constructed and made sense of, as the above-mentioned categories attest. This enables systematic studies of news content and the construction of news, but also of how framing is connected to journalistic norms, values, organizational cultures and routines, among other things (see Scheufele, 1999, p. 109), and to the adoption of these frames by the audience. Audiences, politicians, and the media are all engaged in framing activities; and the interrelationships between their framing of political issues and questions have consequences for all three. This is important for politicians’ abilities to legitimize their decisions, for public trust in state institutions, and for audience loyalty to media institutions. When applied to Russian state media’s news framing of a target country, it is important to take into account that the media outlet is a foreign actor using news reporting to negatively frame events in the target country and seeking to gain public trust in part at least by deviating from politician’s framing of events, while also quite possibly intentionally seeking to exaggerate the discrepancies between the establishment’s and the citizens’ framing of problems. Livingstone and Nassetta (2018) argue that the transnational setting and the communication being about disinformation campaigns make framing a less useful methodological approach because it is based on the relationship between national news organizations and political institutions.

Moreover, framing has only limited capacity to reveal how news stories are structured in order to generate meaning. It aims to locate the key point of the meaning making (the problem), but does not always help to position actors in relation to one another, contextualize events, or take account of emotions and atmosphere. It tends to focus mainly on rational discourse, in which truth and reason are sought, such as on the best course of action or why a political strategy failed to deliver.

This is where narrative analysis is a better choice for in-depth studies of disinformation, since narratives are not grounded in rationality. De Fina and Georgakopoulou refer to works by Bruner (1986) that talk about narrative as a mode of “thought, communication and apprehension of reality” based on stories in contrast to the logo-scientific mode which is based on arguments (De Fina & Georgakopoulou, 2011, p. 15). De Fina and Georgakopoulou write in reference to Bruner that

in the narrative mode, meaning is not presented in terms of definitive truths, as, for example, in scientific writings where the results of experiments are reported, but as ambiguous and open to exploration. (De Fina & Georgakopoulou, 2011, p. 16)

Another major difference between framing and narrative analysis is the latter’s focus on sequences of events and the connectedness of parts (see Somers, 1994). The basis for both the understanding and the analysis of narratives is that they are reliant on time and how sequences of events (plots) move forward. The point of departure for a narrative is a situation of status quo. Some external impetus or, as Bruner writes, “something that violates what is normal and expected” ruptures the status quo and sets the story in motion. Then, in its standard format, the narrative finds its resolution in the establishment of a new status quo. Thus, the imbalance is resolved and equilibrium restored (Bruner, 1996, p. 90). In contrast to framing, which has no such ambitions, narrative analysis seeks to describe this movement in order to capture the meaning that is generated in the process. In other words, the way in which the story is told is as relevant to the analysis as what is being told, and the two aspects are linked.

Like framing analysis, however, narrative analysis pays attention to how the problem is defined, but only as one dimension of what storytelling entails. The ways in which the problem is related to the other parts of the story are more important, including how the actors are described and the roles they are assigned, the environment in which the story takes place, the tone of voice of the story, and the expression or lack of emotion.

A sequence of events moves the plot forward and the identity positions of and relationships between the characters are formed as this takes place, be this how states are defined in the international system or how categories of the population are positioned. Underlying these notions is a narrative ontology, which also sets the narrative analysis apart from framing analysis (see Somers, 1994), and stresses the construction of actors’ identities through their positioning in the narrative.

In the analysis of Sputnik and RT’s news coverage of Sweden, the two methods complemented each other. The framing analysis focused on how the problem in the news item was made sense of and the type of problem the topics were defined as. To describe how RT and Sputnik built their messaging about Sweden, however, narrative analysis was more suitable for capturing the structure of the storytelling, which parts and relationships were depicted, how these were connected to one another in time and space, and moving the sequence of events forward. Including the analysis of the sources, the three levels of analysis were applied to present different aspects of the content, highlighting and stressing different features of the Russian state media’s image of Sweden.

Identifying and Analyzing the Narratives

It is the narrative analysis, however, that provides the most in-depth understanding of the news messages, and is the type of analysis that best captures how the news coverage is constructed to project Sweden. It is through the momentum of the text, the chronology, the way in which the different components of the text are linked together in sequences, and how pieces of information are put together or distinguished that the story takes on meaning (Patterson & Monroe, 1998). The interconnectedness of the parts of the narrative is key to a narrative analysis.

Somers (1994), from which the methodology used here takes its inspiration, describes these “constellations of relationships (connected parts) as embedded in time and space, constituted by causal emplotment”. She calls the features of the narrative: (a) relationality of parts; (b) causal emplotment; (c) selective appropriation; and (d) temporality, sequence, and place (Somers, 1994, p. 616). In line with Somers, the analysis placed great emphasis on how the parts of the plot related to each other, but also on whether stories had similar structures and meaning, and formed patterns of messaging. Causal emplotment means that the different parts are connected in causal relationships: A happens because of B. Selective appropriation is similar to framing in that a delimiting interpretation or approach is adopted that serves as an organizing principle for value judgements and future interpretation. Temporality, sequence, and place are linked with what happens, where and when, and how the parts of the story are ordered in the narrative.

The argument that narrative methodology requires analytical attention to be focused on relations leads to an almost equally strong call for emphasis on identities. Narrative analysis has been found to be particularly useful for identifying identity constructions (de Fina, 2015; Hellman, 2007). The positionality of the people, organizations, institutions, and states appearing in the narratives is key to how RT and Sputnik depict Sweden. Thus, the coding of actors participating in the news involves not just naming them, but interpreting their role and the position they are assigned (see Patterson & Monroe, 1998).

The narrative analysis of the study took in all aspects of the coding, but was mainly centered on problem, solution, and temporality, along with a summary of the unfolding of events. The roles assigned to different actors were also central. Attention was paid to the structure and chronology of the news items, and how sections about context were linked to the “hook” of the story, or what is highlighted as the violation of the status quo. This latter aspect was found to be especially important. There might for example be a story about Covid-19, to which was added a background paragraph, not tied in to the narrative, containing figures about a drastic increase in the number of migrants to Sweden. The problem was thus not so much the Covid-19 pandemic itself, but that immigrants refused to abide by the already highly liberal restrictions. The lack of integration of the background information into the plot might be seen as a silent call to readers to make the connections themselves. The narrative analysis is thus both about coding for the narrative features of the plots, and paying attention to the sequencing of events and how different components of the story—events, facts, actors, ideas, emotions, and so on—are linked and take on meaning through the way in which they are positioned in relation to one another.

The intention of the analysis is, first, to deconstruct and define the basic structure of the narrative of each article (the plot) and what narrative features are being used, to enable identification of the meaning of the broader narrative system over a number of articles. This is a way to grasp the main threads and patterns of the messages in the news coverage. This method has been found to be particularly useful when analyzing material that follows a relatively strict structure, which previous research has found to be the case with Sputnik (Hellman, 2021; Wagnsson & Barzanje, 2021), and when the aim is to understand discursively how the news story is imbued with certain messages.

Each item underwent a narrative coding procedure, which identified a plot, or the storytelling, of each item (N = 312). After coding each item, the plots were aggregated into narratives. Patterns were then searched for across the plots, during which attention was also paid to how links were established between the themes. From the resulting findings, I formulated four dominant narratives: (a) the liberal left, a threat to traditional Sweden; (b) Islamic takeover; (c) gender confusion causes continuous conflict; and (d) liberalistic defiance during a pandemic.

The narratives are presented in Chaps. 6, 7, 8, and 9. The narrative on liberal defiance during a pandemic is an extended version of a Swedish study about Sputnik coverage (see Hellman, 2021), to which is added analysis of RT. The features coded for each news item, which taken together make up the plot, are presented below.

Sources

First, the sources referred to in each news item were noted. A news media organization such as Sputnik has few journalists of their own working in the field. Coding sources provide information on which sources constitute its main intake for Sweden, and how these are treated and assessed; that is, the extent to which they are depicted as credible, stirring up conflict, having the courage to provide controversial or sensitive information or appearing to conceal information, and so on.

Actor

An actor is a person, leader, institution, organization, state, or government represented as having an active role in the news story and participating in the unfolding events. This means that actors have agency. People or organizations mentioned or spoken of as objects rather than subjects are not considered actors. One news item reported that a Swedish journalist in Iran had appeared on camera wearing a veil, an event which was said to have raised strong reactions among Swedes. The reporter in question did not participate in the news item. She was the object of the piece so was not coded as an actor, since she had no agency. The tag or identity of each actor appearing in the news was noted, but more important was the assignment of the role of actor in the plot.

The narration of the actors/characters was expected to include characterizations of suspects/offenders, victims and heroes, and stereotypical or mythical figures. A woman participant in a news report might be thought of as a sex worker, princess, virgin, mother, and so on, but also as the victim or the heroine. Actors might be assigned an authoritarian role in the article, depicted as powerful and influential. It was also noted whether actors were disputing with one another and, if so, whether one actor seemed to gain the upper hand, or the depiction of the disputants was more about the fact that they disagreed with or fought with one another. In the latter case, this might indicate a deliberative kind of coverage where the media serves as the arena for public debate, but such a positioning of actors in the narrative can project an image of a fragmented, polarized society where no one gets along and where some actors are seen as loud, rude, disrespectful, and seeking to increase their power.

Previous research has shown that the way in which actors are depicted and the roles they are assigned has a great influence on how their messages and viewpoints are perceived. This might be connected to the reliability of the message, its weight, whether it is extreme or mainstream, legitimate or illegitimate and possible to dismiss or credible. The essence of the narrative is in this sense dependent on the way in which the actors in the narrative are presented and the roles and functions ascribed to them.

Space

Space is thought of as the location of the news item and where an event happened. It might be a place or a context, a situation, or even an event such as a football match. This would be comparable with the scene and scenography of a play. The analysis asked what the space of the plot looked like. Where possible, the extent to which the space was significant for the story and its unfolding was stated‚ or how the story depended on space for its messaging. Some narratives took on meaning in close connection with the space, such as in the example above of the reporter on site in Iran. Swedish feminist foreign policy and the efforts made to represent Sweden as a feminist country were questioned by the image of a Swedish reporter wearing a veil on location in Iran. In other cases, the site of the event was irrelevant for the meaning making of the plot or the space was defined as an organization rather than a geographical place. A story about an organization of Muslim LGBT+ activists in Sweden participating in the pride festival depicts space as a community of outsiders under a banner of the pride flag. The report connected the organization to the suburbs of larger cities but did not explicitly situate it in these places. This shows that although space is for the most part depicted as a concrete and/or specific place or room, there are exceptions where space is coded as more of an abstraction, or a place-less community.

The Problem Or Conflict

The problem in the news tended to be clearly defined and served for the most part as the driving force of the plot. This is typical of news stories but was especially marked as RT and Sputnik tended to depict problems and conflicts to demonstrate domestic problems as weaknesses and instabilities in Swedish society. The problem was coded using a few descriptive sentences focused on the points of contention, dysfunctions, or actors’ critique or complaints. The problem was also analyzed in relation to other features of the plot. Furthermore how problems were sometimes explained by linking them to other problems and conflicts was also noted. Attention was paid to how this was done and how the links were explicitly and/or implicitly established.

Implied Solutions Or How the Original Status Quo Can Be Restored

To restore a disrupted situation to a stable status quo goes back to the very essence of how narratives are understood. It might be a way to reach closure in the story and is, narrative methodology aside, known to be a much-used format in news journalism. However, in the context of disinformation and harmful narratives, the resolution of the story might serve an especially pertinent purpose by showing that closure is impossible or a new status quo unattainable. This reinforces the view of a dysfunctional society for which there is no remedy. In coding for how solutions were depicted in the plots, it was found that attention had to be paid to a reverse position of problem and solution, as news reports assigned the solutions to the original position or status quo (the starting point of the plot/the sequence of events) and the rupture to the new position. This was a way to narrate social decline and the downfall of a state. The solution was presented as a call to return to old values and traditions, and to restore society to what it once was. When coding for solutions as a feature of the plot, it was therefore important to keep an open mind about solutions being depicted as an unattainable status quo that had been left behind.

Temporalities: Past, Present, and Future

Projections of temporalities are key to the plot as these descriptive features are the very foundations and building blocks that drive the story forward or allow a look over the shoulder to what has passed, which can also be a kind of driving force for a story. The question here was therefore not whether the narrative contains temporality, or expressions of time, but how that temporality played into other features, such as the conflict/solution dynamic. It asked whether the news item depicted a problem of the past that had been resolved in the present, or what used to be unproblematic or even an asset had become a problem that called for a solution. Attention was also paid to depictions of the future and visions for Sweden, as well as threats on the horizon and pending conflicts that have not been addressed by the authorities.

Narrator

To the five similar narrative features to those used by Somers (1994) was added a sixth: the narrator. The narrator is the storyteller and answers the question of from whose perspective the story is told. The choice of narrator appeared to be connected to the choice of actors brought into the story and of what sources to use. The narrator was not evident or even relevant in every news item and in some plots was an external voice telling the story, such as the reporter leading the reader through the unfolding of events or giving voice to the different actors as part of the plot. In other plots, one of the actors was the narrator, so the story was told from his or her perspective while other voices responded, adding supportive or adversarial comments. The coding for the role of the narrator was thought to be especially useful in order to show how Sputnik and RT colored their plots with the anti-establishment attitudes that both are known to favor. Analyzing who the narrator was and the position the narrator was assigned in the plot clarified the relationships between the actors, the weight of their arguments, which values they promoted, and the positions prescribed to elites or ordinary citizens. The positions from which actions and reactions were reported were also noted. This added to the interpretation of how actors were classified in the plots.

In Sum

This chapter outlines the methodology of the study—narrative analysis—and explains its suitability for a study of disinformation by Russian state-affiliated news media. The narrative analysis is centered on both the content of the constructed messages and how they acquire meaning through the way in which the stories are told. The narrative analysis is complemented by a framing analysis, which is an in-depth content analysis that focuses on the way in which a problem or issue is defined. The framing analysis therefore shares with the narrative analysis the ambition to explore how messages come to take on meaning. The narrative analysis, however, sees messaging as storytelling and places emphasis on how the story unfolds through the sequence of events. Seven key features of the narrative that guided the coding of the news material were presented: sources; actor; space; the problem or conflict; implied solution, or how the status quo can be restored; temporalities, past, present, and future; and narrator. The narrative analysis itself involved taking all of these features into consideration in demonstrating what and how meaning is produced. With the exception of narrator, these were taken from the work of Somers (1994) and from their application in a similar empirical study by Wagnsson and Barzanje (2021).