Ukrainian Media as the Research Object in Peer-Reviewed Journals Indexed in the Top Scientometric Bases: Review

Abstract

After the Revolution of Dignity, the world scholars pay much attention to Ukrainian media and communications system. However, Ukrainian media researchers have relatively few publications in the world scientific journals. Therefore, the study is aimed to overview the domestic media by the eyes of Western scholars who are studying this topic and are looking for previous publications. In this way, we will be able to acquaint Ukrainian scientists with the articles published in scientific journals, which have been appeared since the beginning of 2014 with Ukrainian traditional and social media as a subject of research. The automated search was conducted based on the New York University articles and publications database, which includes all journals indexed in Scopus, Web of Science, as well as other prominent scientific journals. As a result, 35 such publications were found. This review was carried out using the content analysis and author’s methodology for the PR-messages analysis. It was defined that Ukrainian research material is interesting for the Western media scientists as well as for the scientific journals reviewed in the world’s scientometric bases. Unique social phenomena – the “horizontal” revolution, more or less successful resistance to Russian aggression, the new traditions of activism – make this experience valuable for the researchers of communication science, sociology, political science, philology, gender studies, etc. At the same time, Russian scientists are also paying a great attention to Ukrainian research material. This attention often leads to the publishing of the articles containing the “Russian strategic narrative” in Western scientific journals. These articles describe the national media, political and social realities in such a way that the reader get a false vision of the situation. The indicators of this narrative were found in 5 out of 35 publications. Ukrainian scholars can completely set right this situation by submitting more articles dedicated to current scientific issues to leading journals. But for this purpose, it is desirable to expand the range of methods used to study the Ukrainian media environment.