1) Agenda setting - the ability of mass media to put emphasis on particular issues (based on amount of coverage, for example) and its relationships with the public concern about the issue.

2) Priming - the correlation between news coverage strategies and the criteria, according to which, the audience makes political evaluations about leaders and governments. Priming tends to be stronger for performance evaluation and have lesser effects for personality assessments. Sometimes it is considered as an addition to agenda setting, because by making some issues more prominent in people's mind, the news industry is able to shape or reshape their assumptions about politics.

3) Framing - the connection between how an issue is characterized in news reports and its influence on how it is understood by the public.

Therefore, agendas, perceptions, correlations and relationships between events could be controlled. Nevertheless, one concept should be highlighted here - the one of “frame”, which deserves special attention because it can be applied in the analysis of conflicts. A frame is defined as a mental construction which enables to think and interpret reality, in which there are some slots to be filled in. For example, if there is an aggressor, there should be a victim. Two sides of the conflict put it in different ways: in the Russian-Georgian conflict of 2008 Georgia is an aggressor for Russia, while Russia is an aggressor for Georgia. The way in which the news is brought and, consequently, the frame in which the news is presented, is a choice made by journalists. Some scholars define frames as “collections of perceptions and thoughts that people use to define a situation, organize information, and determine what is important and what is not” Lewicki, R, Saunders, D, Minton, J. Negotiation. Burr Ridge, IL: McGraw-Hill Higher Education, 1999. P.134.

Detalization of the key frame is essential: the more details are provided, the more trustworthy the frame appears. Thus, it involves the necessary engagement of experts, victims, witnesses, authorities and visualization. Extension of the frame can also take place by adding accusations and justifications. As a result, the enemy obtains new features represented for the global audience. In this case, the frame refers to the way media arranges and presents events and issues on agenda and the way people perceive and interpret this information.

Consequently, the process of frames creation is called framing. Robert Entman denotes it as a way to make some aspects of reality more significant in the text. He also suggests four sides in this process: the reporter, the text, the audience, and the society. Thus, journalists while telling stories use frames to highlight particular aspects and to facilitate audience interest. Entman, R. 1993. Framing: Toward Clarification of a Fractured Paradigm. Journal of Communication 43/4. P.55. In the context of conflict coverage, framing can be very helpful as it provides a given explanation as to why a conflict takes place, what parties are there and why they behave in one way or another. Basically, priorities, solutions, plans and assessment of actions are determined by frames. In their book, Michael Elliott, Sanda Kaufman, Robert Gardner and Guy Burgess state that framing can also be applied for “rationalizing self-interest, convincing a broader audience, building coalitions, or lending preferentiality to specific outcomes.” Elliott, M., Kaufman S., Gardner R., Burgess G. Teaching conflict assessment and frame analysis through interactive webbased simulations. The International Journal of Conflict Management, Vol. 13, No. 4, 2002. Pp. 320-321. Among frames that are used in conflict media coverage they single out:

- Identity frame helps to demonstrate how parties to a conflict identify themselves (self-definition, affiliation to religious or any other group).

- Charaterization frame is connected to stereotyping and can be positive or negative; it is used for describing adversaries, undermine their legitimacy or discredit their motivations.

- Power frame helps to evaluate legitimate forms of power, which are more likely to advance its position.

- Conflict management frame identifies what solutions for a conflict resolution are suggested by different parties.

- Information frame indicates reliable and unreliable sources of information.

- Risk frame describes assumptions about future events and risks that can appear.

- Loss versus gain frame is also connected with suppositions about future and possible courses of actions, what losses and gains they can bring.

If any noticeable shifts in frames or their influence on conflict dynamics appear, this process is called reframing. It offers a new perspective not only when some prominent changes in the context of conflict occur, but also when its interpretation and representation change even though the conflict dynamics may remain intact.

In conclusion, mass media, undoubtedly, has undergone drastic changes in recent decades. Changes in nature and coverage of conflicts have transformed the way wars are covered, represented and publicly perceived. The appearance of global broadcasting, satellite channels and the social media revolution turned to be game-changers, and now viewers confront a plethora of competing images, frames and narratives from various sources. In many cases they become victims of information warfare led by opposing actors without being able to identify the truth. Basically, all the recent and present cases of information campaigns accompanying military conflicts are characterized by aforementioned components of information warfare, which will be addressed in the next chapters.

Chapter 2. Causes of the war

2.1 Causes of the war in Russian media

2011 became a landmark year which denotes the beginning of the Syrian conflict. Some media reported that mass protests were prompted by the arrest of several youngsters who painted anti-government graffiti. Even though in the first days of unrest in the middle of March, mostly all the media wrote about “peaceful demonstrators” in the city of Daraa. Several days later, events took a violent and chaotic turn and then led to a civil war.

The numbers of articles dedicated to the Syrian conflict presented in Table 1 indicate that RT has provided saturation coverage (56,700 articles in total), while TASS has devoted only 13,244 articles to this topic - the lowest number out of three media outlets of focus.

Table 1. Distribution of Russian media articles devoted to the reasons of the war arranged by year.

Number of articles devoted to the reasons of the war	Overall number of articles about Syria	% of articles devoted to the causes
	2011	2012	2013	2014	2015	2016	2017	2018
RT	391	497	373	266	247	299	268	103	56,700	4.7%
TASS	17	42	48	52	30	139	88	60	13,244	6%
Sputnik	227	354	170	189	197	548	277	77	40,393	5%

According to Table 1, the share of articles devoted to the events of March 2011 and reasons for the war is quite similar to each other in all three media outlets (4.5-6%), even though the overall quantity of articles devoted to Syria varies significantly.



Figure 1. Distribution of Russian media articles devoted to the reasons of the war arranged by year.

Figure 1 shows that the first peak of coverage in RT and Sputnik was in 2012 when the conflict unfolded to its full extent. The second peak was in 2016 - the year after Russia stepped into the game, and its full-fledged military operation in Syria came into full force. Evidently, such an important foreign policy decision could not be neglected and many mass media turned back to the very beginning and gave their readers some background and explanation as to why the conflict started and who the main participants were in order to justify this intervention.

Based on quota sampling, 127 This number was obtained by means of adding additional units of analysis due to the correction for uneven distribution of articles over years and media outlets used. articles focusing on the causes of the Syrian war from three media outlets were chosen out of 4,959 articles in total and content analysis was carried out.

Content analysis allowed the identification of the main themes, main actors and the way the beginning of the war and preconditions for it were reflected in Russian mass media:

Reasons:

- anti-government (demonstrations, protests)

- anti-Assad (protesters)

- freedoms (democratic, media)

- reforms (administrative, democratic, economic)

- foreign (fighters, sponsors, aid, conspiracy, intrusion, meddling, powers, support)

Actors:

- activists (human rights, pro-democracy)

- protesters/demonstrators (peaceful, fake, unsanctioned)

- fighters (freedom, opposition, rebel, foreign)

- forces (government, political, regime change, Syrian opposition)

- groups (FSA-affiliated, jihadist, major opposition, Salafi-Jihadi)

- Islamists

- terrorists (gangs, organizations)

- jihadists (foreign)

- organizations (human rights organizations, independent organization, Syrian rights organizations, terrorist organizations)

Events:

- protests (mass street, protest marches)

- armed (attacks, conflict, opposition)

- coup (military, in Tunisia, Egypt, Yemen)

- revolution (Arab, Arab Spring)

- violence (mercenary, spiraling)

- military (heavy military hardware, coup, interference, intervention, operation)

Judging from these results, the major reason for the protests allegedly was dissatisfaction with current leader and government. That is why, protests and demonstrators are usually called “anti-government” and “anti-Assad”. Among other demands “freedoms” take a noticeable position which is connected with “reforms” of any kind (administrative, democratic, economic, social).

The protests turned from being peaceful to ferocious quite quickly and reports about “armed attacks” and “armed opposition” became more frequent. Thus, the wave of armed uprisings in the Middle East countries which came to be known as Arab Spring or Arab revolutions was considered as one of the causes as well. Moreover, other countries in the region like Tunisia, Egypt, and Yemen were alluded in this context.

While the conflict was spiraling into a civil war, more and more information about “foreign” meddling and conspiracy concerning foreign-backed terrorists and “fake demonstrators”, whose main aim was a regime change, began to appear. It led to a shift of focus in media coverage by the end of 2012 and at the beginning of 2013, when, among other reasons, non-Syrian players and foreign-sponsored groups started being mentioned.

Word frequency analysis enables to identify thirty most frequently-used words:

Table 2. Word frequency analysis results from articles focusing on causes of the war.

Word	Count	Variations
Syria	559	Syria
Syrian	521	Syrian, Syrians
Assad	305	Assad, Assad
government	281	governance, governing, government, governments, governments'
opposition	190	opposite, opposition
president	180	preside, presidency, president
protests	173	protest, protester, protesters, protesting, protests
forces	151	force, forced, forceful, forcefully, forces
2011	146	2011
Arabic	146	Arab, Arab, Arabic, Arabs
regime	134	regime, regime, regime', regimes
Bashar	108	Bashar
arms	106	armed, arming, arms
foreign	95	foreign, foreigners
change	88	change, change, changed, changes, changing
peaceful	79	peace, peaceful, peacefully
Western	78	Western
region	77	region, regional, regionally, regions
Arab Spring	67	Spring, Spring', Springs
crisis	64	crisis
terrorist	63	terrorist, terrorists
demonstrators	58	demonstrate, demonstrated, demonstrating, demonstration, demonstrations, demonstrators
backing	53	back, backed, backing, backs
democracy	41	democracies, democracy
Islamist	41	Islamist, Islamists
rights	41	right, rightful, rights
Daraa	38	Daraa
Sunni	37	Sunni, Sunnis
terrorism	37	terror, terrorism
freedom	32	freedom, freedoms

This type of analysis demonstrates that Bashar al-Assad's presidency and regime became the ground for people's unrest. Thus, government, name and position of Assad are mentioned 874 times and regime is mentioned 134 times in 127 articles under analysis.

The phenomenon of “Arab Spring” was referred to 67 times, which allows to suggest that the beginning of the war and resemblance with other Arab countries suffered from Arab Spring were discussed among other reasons for the war.

The allusion to “foreign” presence is also confirmed, as it comes across 95 times. In this context, the mentioning of “backing” is crucial, because in the majority of articles, these two notions are connected. Other countries' involvement is often labelled as “US-backed” or “Western-backed” foreign fighters or opposition. After 2013, lesser information about “peaceful protesters” came up and more blame was put on “external” influence while describing causes of the war. In addition, “Western” is also one of the most frequently-used words which is repeated 78 times.

Symbolizing a turn in media coverage with terrorism being named as a trigger of conflict escalation, words “terrorism”, “terrorists” and “Islamists” are used 141 times to outline that opposition reportedly engaged in mass atrocities to no lesser extent than the government.

Democracy, rights and freedom, which were considered as the main demands of the opposition, are mentioned 41, 41 and 32 times respectively, and these figures signal that after the first year of the conflict these notions were not used very often for a description of the causes.

It is also worth noting that religious aspect - which in case of Syria means the sectarian divide between the Sunni, a majority sect, and the Alawite, a minority Shia sect holding political power under the Baath regime - sometimes was named as one of the reasons. Specifically, “Sunni” - the most popular branch of Islam - is mentioned (37 times). According to this narrative, Sunnis are opposed to Shiites, who are referred to more seldom (14 times).

Sentiment sentences coding demonstrates the overwhelming majority of negative connotation over positive ones. Namely, 472 sentences out of all were decoded very negatively and 531 as moderately negative, while only 66 sentences appeared to be very positive and 237 sentences - moderately positive.

2.2 Causes of the war in American media

Reasons of the Syrian conflict, evidently, were not neglected by American media outlets either, but the share of articles devoted to this topic varies drastically. Table 3 demonstrates that the New York Times has devoted 20,790 articles to this topic - twice the amount of CNN figures (43,300 articles in total). Fox News has an average index of its total number (22,473), but it has the lowest figures of articles dedicated to the causes of the war, which indicates that the editorial policy of Fox News differs significantly from two other media outlets in focus.

Table 3. Distribution of American media articles devoted to the reasons of the war arranged by year

Number of articles devoted to the reasons of the war	Overall number of articles about Syria	% of articles devoted to the causes
	2011	2012	2013	2014	2015	2016	2017	2018
CNN	1,219	935	1,102	1,179	1,965	2,045	2,310	3,253	43,300	32%
NYT	762	425	297	217	204	185	146	186	20,790	11.6%
Fox News	68	346	391	159	168	104	190	152	22,473	7%

According to Table 3, the share of articles devoted to the beginning and reasons of the war differs significantly in these three media outlets. CNN paid the most attention to this topic - 32% out of all, while Fox News discussed it only in 7% of articles and the New York Times - in 11.6%.

Figure 2. Distribution of American media articles devoted to the reasons of the war arranged by year

Figure 2 shows that coverage of CNN exceeds coverage of two other media excessively. It has peaked for the first time in 2015, which is, probably, due to the launching of the Russian military operation in Syria. Moreover, it is still noticeably increasing over the recent years. Contrary to CNN, the NYT's coverage is dwindling: after its peak in 2011 in the beginning of the conflict, it has reduced fourfold in 2018. The number of articles from Fox News has been growing gradually over seven years of conflict, the highest rates were recorded in 2012 and 2013.

Based on quota sampling 129 This number was obtained by means of adding additional units of analysis due to the correction for uneven distribution of articles over years and media outlets used. articles dedicated to the causes of the Syrian war from three media outlets were chosen out of 17,180 articles in total and content analysis was carried out.

Content analysis allowed the identification of the main themes, main actors and the way the beginning of the war and preconditions for it were reflected in American mass media:

Reasons:

- government (1,982 government massacre, Baathist, government, corrupt governments, government corruption, government permission, government warnings, transitional government)

- anti-government (anti-government videos, anti-government message, anti-government protests, chanting anti-government slogans, painting anti-government graffiti)

- regime (Syrian regime forces, brutal regime)

- human rights (basic rights, human rights issues, human rights reforms)

Actors:

- groups (armed groups, monitoring group, religious group, human rights groups, jihadi groups, militant groups, terror group, terrorist groups)

- activists (opposition activists, activist group, human rights activists, political activist)

- demonstrators (beating demonstrators, infiltrating demonstrators, peaceful demonstrators, pro-democracy demonstrations, shooting demonstrators)

- authorities (Syrian authorities, security authorities)

- rebel (little rebel activity, rebel factions, rebel fighters, rebel groups, Syrian rebels retreat)

- opposition (opposition activists, opposition bodies, opposition group, opposition stronghold)

Description of events:

- protest (peaceful protest, anti-government protests, big protest, street protests)

- armed (armed groups)

- forces (Syrian regime forces, Syrian government forces, Syrian security forces, army forces, police forces, security force violations, unwarranted force)

The analysis of the main themes indicates that the government became the main reason for people coming out on the streets. Historical reference to “1982” when the government of Bashar al-Assad's father suppressed an uprising was used to liken it with the events of 2011 when Assad was accused of crushing “peaceful demonstrators”. Besides, the government and the ruling Baath party are considered as being “corrupted” and the regime is called “brutal”. One more theme which is a direct indication to one of the causes of the war is “human rights issue”. People were demanding human rights reforms and the regime change to more democratic one (“pro-democracy demonstrations”).

As for the description of the events, the mentioning of “painting anti-government graffiti” indicates that theory about youngsters who were arrested for doing this was also corroborated in American mass media. Thus, these arrests struck a chord among Syrian people and triggered the notorious uprising. Even though protests are depicted as “peaceful”, special emphasis is placed on the aggressive governmental actions (beating demonstrators, shooting demonstrators, regime/government/security forces, army forces, police forces, security force violations).

Table 4 represents word frequency analysis with top thirty frequent words in American media:

Table 4. Word frequency analysis results from articles focusing on causes of the war.

Word	Count	Variations
Syria	471	Syria
Syrian	440	Syrian, Syrians
Bashar Assad	408	Assad, Assad's
government	329	govern, governance, governed, government, governments
protests	221	protest, protester, protesters, protesters', protesting, protests
forces	206	force, forced, forceful, forces, forces'
killings	160	kill, killed, killing, killings, kills
president	139	presidency, president
demonstrator	136	demonstrate, demonstrated, demonstrating, demonstration, demonstrations, demonstrator, demonstrators
regime	126	regime, regimes
Daraa	125	Daraa
rights	120	right, rightfully, rights
activists	119	activist, activists
2011	111	2011
Arab Spring	111	arab, arabic, arabs
opposition	104	opposite, opposition
civil	70	civil
fighting	70	fight, fighting
uprising	69	uprising, uprisings
arrests	67	arrest, arrested, arrests
violence	66	violence
arms	65	armed, arming, arms
peaceful	64	peace, peaceful, peacefully
freedom	50	freedom, freedoms
back	44	back, backed, backing, backs
unrest	38	unrest
crackdown	36	crackdown, crackdowns
revolution	36	revolution, revolutions
democracy	33	democracies, democracy
foreign	33	foreign, foreigner, foreigners

As well as in Russian media, Syrian president Bashar al-Assad and his government takes the first places according to frequency - 916 times with “regime” mentioned 136 times, which gives ground to consider dissatisfaction with Assad and his policies as one of the reasons for the protests.

Daraa - the hotbed of the revolt - was mentioned 125 times, 2011 - the year of the beginning of the war and “Arab Spring” - 111 times in 120 articles under analysis, which indicates that almost all the articles contain information not only about when and where the conflict started, but also a reference to Arab Spring revolutions that hit the Middle East among other causes of the war.

Among demands of the protesters, which were mostly repeated at the outset of the conflict, “rights” take the first place (120 times), while “freedom” and “democracy” are repeated much less (50 and 33 times respectively). Thus, it implies that the emphasis has shifted from the initial allegations.

Conspiracy about “foreign” intervention and external players is not popular in American media as it came across only 33 times. Nevertheless, allusion to someone “backing” opposition is presented in some articles (44 times) as one of the reasons of the war.

What is also important to note is that “violence” (repeated 66 times), “arrests” (67 times) and “uprising” (69 times) have very similar numbers, which suggests that in American media, the blame for intensifying of the conflict is put on governmental forces. “Crackdown” mentioned 36 times adds to this assumption as well.

Sentiment sentences coding reveals that most of the sentences possess negative connotation: 475 - very negative and 680 - moderately negative, while there are only 65 sentences with very positive connotation and 232 moderately positive.

2.3 Causes of war. Comparison

The results of content analysis give reasons to suggest that the image of the beginning of the war presented by the Russian mass media can be deconstructed as follows:

- Anti-government protests broke out, Syrian citizens peacefully called for reforms;

- Arab Spring hit Syria, which implies a revolution to overthrow Bashar al-Assad (after the unrest turned into armed clashes);

- Foreign meddling added to turning the conflict into a bloody civil war.

The results of the coverage analysis devoted to the causes of the war in Russian mass media mainly coincides with the official position of the Russian government. President Vladimir Putin, Minister of Foreign Affairs Sergei Lavrov and other Russian officials in their speeches stated that:

- Structure of the Syrian state, the government, the very nature of power and social patterns should be put to the change but without innocent people suffer Answers to questions from French journalists from TF1 TV channel.

Published time: 12.10.2016 http://en.kremlin.ru/events/ president/news/ 53081;

- Some efforts to “stage” the protests were made externally Putin V. Russia and the changing world;
Published time: 27.02.2012 https://www.rt.com/ politics/official-word/ putin-russia-changing-world-263/

Full-scale civil war involving external forces underway in Syria - Primakov

Published time: 08.08.2012 http://tass.com/middle-east-and-north-africa/680036;

- The United States and its allies bear responsibility for what has happened in the region and Syria in particular Answers to questions from French journalists from TF1 TV channel.

Published time: 12.10.2016 http://en.kremlin.ru/events/ president/news/ 53081.

As for the American media, the main messages devoted to the causes of war can be presented as follows:

- Peaceful demonstrators dissatisfied with a corrupted government and lack of human rights and freedoms came out on the streets, but were shot and arrested by the regime forces Statement by the President Obama on Syria

Published time: 04.02.2012 https://obamawhitehouse.archives.gov/the-press-office/2012/02/04/statement- president-syria ;

- Syria became one more victim of the Arab Spring wave Remarks by the President Obama on the Middle East and North Africa

Published time: 19.05.2011 https://obamawhitehouse.archives.gov/the-press-office/2011/05/19/remarks-president-middle-east-and-north-africa;

- Peaceful protests were brutally suppressed by Bashar al-Assad's forces what led to escalation into an insurgency 2011 Secretary Clinton's Remarks. Remarks With Haitian President-elect Michel Martelly After Their Meeting

Published time: 20.04.2011 https://2009-2017.state.gov/secretary/20092013clinton/ rm/2011/04/161375.htm.

According to these results, it is feasible to track certain similarities. Thus, Russian and American media agree upon the peaceful nature of protests at the outset of the conflict and demands of demonstrators (democratic reforms, more freedom in all spheres, changes in the system of state).

Nevertheless, differences are more evident: Russian media focuses lots of attention to the foreign meddling and “Western-backed” opposition and called it one of the main reasons for the conflict escalation. It is only slightly highlighted in American media, which are, in their turn, more focused on Assad's violent actions and label him and his forces as triggers to the intensified confrontation.

Unlike being named as one of the other major triggers, terrorists, Islamists and jihadists do not get lots of coverage in this context in American media. Sectarian division in Syria between the Sunni and the Shiite also does not seem to be of big interest there, whereas Russian media occasionally refers to these groups while enumerating the reasons of the war.

2.4 Elements of information warfare

Conducted analysis elicits some prominent features of information campaign:

- Intensity (Especially CNN's coverage stands out in this context as 32% of articles are devoted to the causes of the war and the beginning of the conflict - the highest number out of all six media sources);

- Consistency (All media refer to the topic in focus to a greater or lesser extent which is evident on Figures 1 and 2);

- Negative representation (Russian media focus mainly on foreign intrusion and terrorist groups among opposition forces, while American media tend to blame Assad and his regime in the conflict evolving);

- “Talking heads” (Extremely popular technique for both sides; a wide range of authorities' quotations, interviews and conference speeches are used in addition to a plethora of experts, analysts and politicians invited to give their comments).

- Detailed and vivid visualization (Almost all the articles contain pictures or videos from the ground which serve a particular purpose - to convince who is guilty or to show how the events unfolded)

It goes without saying that all mass media were trying to create a certain frame. Among those which were used to determine the roots of the conflict were:

- Identity frame (the way protesters identified themselves as freedom fighters or radical warriors or religious group affiliation - Sunni or Shiite);

- Power frame (the way to evaluate legitimate forms of power, and also the power which is more likely to advance its position - as it was mentioned above, American media presented Assad as losing power and not be able to cope with the revolution).

The shift that occurred in Russian media after 2013 can be viewed as reframing. Since that time, Russian media introduced a new perspective - foreign meddling and, as a consequence, appearance of jihadists became one of the main reasons for conflict escalation. Some linguistic and stylistic tools can also be tracked down:

- Precedent: Arab Spring and countries it hit before were named many times in all the media to convince that the Syrian events are the consequences of it.

- Labels: such phrases as “brutal” regime in American media or “Western-backed” opposition in Russian are the examples of labelling.

- Connotation and sentiment: some of the results were provided by sentiment sentences coding analysis, where negative connotations are prevailing.

- Evaluation: in some media a direct assessment can come across, for instance, such allegations as “opposition fights for freedom” or “Assad kills innocent citizens”).

Chapter 3. Attitude to Bashar al-Assad

3.1 Attitude to Bashar al-Assad in Russian media

Syrian President Bashar al-Assad turned out to be, probably, the most controversial figure during the Syrian conflict. He took the office in June 2000 when his father, Hafez Assad, who ruled the country with an iron fist for nearly three decades, died. In the beginning he was perceived as a fresh, young leader who might initiate substantial change and elaborate a more moderate and democratic regime in Syria. As the uprising proved, not all the promises and initiatives were delivered and implemented. The fact that Bashar and his family belong to Syria's Alawite minority in a predominantly Sunni country added to controversy around him as some consider the current government secular.

Table 5. Distribution of articles devoted to Bashar al-Assad in Russian media arranged by year.

Number of articles devoted to Bashar al-Assad	Overall number of articles about Syria	% of articles devoted to Assad
	2011	2012	2013	2014	2015	2016	2017	2018
RT	749	1,147	638	2,363	1,740	3,890	2,160	2,330	56,700	31%
TASS	48	180	240	132	438	528	576	216	13,244	36.5%
Sputnik	609	866	753	854	2,682	4,666	3,382	1,675	40,393	38%

According to Table 5, the highest share of articles which refers to Syrian President is from Sputnik even though overall number of articles is higher from RT, which, in its turn, dedicated 31% of articles to Assad. TASS has similar share of articles about the President to Sputnik's - 36.5%



Figure 3. Distribution of articles devoted to Bashar al-Assad in Russian media arranged by year

Figure 3 demonstrates that the first peak of coverage in RT and Sputnik was in 2012, when the conflict unfolded to its full extent. The coverage in TASS also became more intensive that year (it increased almost fourfold in comparison with 2011). The second peak in RT was in 2014, while in Sputnik the number of articles remained nearly the same up to 2015, when it reached its final peak along with RT. It can be easily explained by Russian engagement in Syrian affairs. Since 2015, President Assad and President Putin had a number of discussions and, as a result, a Russian military operation was launched. After that, in 2018 it reduced by almost twice as much compared to its highest amount in 2016.

Based on quota sampling 131 This number was obtained by means of adding additional units of analysis due to the correction for uneven distribution of articles over years and media outlets used. articles about Bashar al-Assad were singled out in three Russian media sources (out of total number - 32,832).

Content analysis identified the main themes in these articles, which gives an overview of the situation with respect to Syrian President, government, foreign influence and many other issues:

Description of Assad:

- Syrian leader, president

- legitimate leader, legitimate president

- legitimate authority, government

- legitimate Syrian leadership

Description of the government:

- elected government

- sitting government

- real government

Issues discussed:

- national sovereignty

- different nationalities

- national state interests

- national security

- stable government

- national conference (reconciliation, dialogue)

- power transfer

Attitude of Syrian citizens:

- mass support

- public support

- carrying support

- staunch supporters

- popular support

- considerable support

Description of the events and participants:

- Syrian conflict (unrest, war, disaster, armed conflict)

- chemical arms

- armed extremists

- foreign support of the terrorist groups

- groups (rebel, opposition, terrorist, human rights, various lobby groups, monitoring, international)

- government troops (army, authorities, parliament, elite)

External players

- leading world powers

- European (powers, countries)

- Western powers, governments

- powers (international, foreign, outside)

- intervention (military, foreign)

- energetic intervention from outside

These results reflect a position of Russian media concerning Bashar al-Assad by repetitively calling him a “legitimate” leader or president and his government as a “legitimate” authority. The issue of legitimacy has been on the agenda since the beginning of the conflict and was widely discussed by the international political community.

Among other problems Assad is supposed to deal with, those connected with “national sovereignty”, “state interest” and “security” are regularly discussed in the articles, as well as a need for “stable government”.

Mass support of Syrians for their President is continually highlighted in Russian media, especially after he won the election with 88.7% of votes that cannot be a better proof of “public support”. Thus, it implies a faith of people into their leader as the only single figure able to stabilize the country.

Concerning Assad, the other controversial issue was the usage of chemical weapons that he was accused of. It got quite an extensive coverage, because Russia, among other countries, suggested dismantling the Syrian chemical arsenal and was directly involved in the process of Syrian chemical demilitarization.

Themes about external players are stipulated by the fact that American and European leaders and officials were extremely vocal about Assad's fate. Russian media cited their speeches with calls to “power transfer” and regime change and along with prospects of “military intervention”.

Word frequency analysis identifies the thirty most frequently-used words:

Table 6. Word frequency analysis results from articles focusing on Bashar al-Assad.

Word	Count	Variations
Bashar Assad	903	Assad, Assad'
Syria	745	Syria, Syria'
Russia	463	Russia, Russian, Russians
president	386	presidency, president, presidents
government	293	govern, governance, governed, government, governments
support	155	support, supported, supporter, supporters, supporting
regime	131	regime, 'regime, regime', regimes
international	129	international, internationally
foreign	118	foreign
terrorists	115	terrorist, terroristic, terrorists, terrorists'
elections	108	elect, elected, election, elections
forces	107	force, forced, forces, forces'
Moscow	93	Moscow
Damascus	91	Damascus, Damascus',
leader	88	leader, leaders
United States	88	States, States', U.S.
Western	85	Western
West	83	West
chemical	82	chemical
power	82	power, powerful, powers
terrorism	76	terror, terrorism
security	75	secure, secures, securing, security
legitimate	73	legitimate, legitimately, legitimizing
change	67	change, changed, changes, changing
Lavrov	62	Lavrov
Obama	59	Obama
Washington	55	Washington
Putin	54	Putin
Libya	51	Libya, Libya'
intervention	41	intervention, interventions

Judging by these results, the top-three frequent words are Bashar Assad (903 times), Syria (745 times) and Russia (463 times), which confirms that Russian media are mainly focused on Russian involvement in Syrian affairs.

President, government and regime are repeated 386, 293 and 131 times, respectively, as the fate of the Syrian leader and his government are constantly discussed by Russian, Western and European leaders. As it was already stated, the issue of Assad's legitimacy has been among one of the most predominant in their speeches and, as a result, in media reports.

Among frequently-used words, “support” (155 times) deserves a special position, as it reflects not only mass support of Syrian for Assad but also support for opposition, especially, terrorists (115 times) by outside players. In addition, “foreign”, which can also be applied to both foreign meddling or foreign backing of terrorists, is used 118 times.

The Unites States is also one of the most prominent actors in this conflict. Since September 2014, it has been leading a coalition and launching airstrikes allegedly against ISIS. The U.S. administration expressed its negative attitude to Assad since the very early days of conflict and, consequently, it has been reported in Russian media as well. Moreover, the fact that has been widely discussed and brought into focus is that U.S. and members of the coalition were never invited in Syria and, thus, their actions contravene international law, while Russian military operation was conducted at the request of Bashar al-Assad. This justifies mentioning of United States (88 times), West and Western (85 and 83 times) along with former President Obama who was mentioned 59 times and the seat of the government - Washington (55 times). At the same time, Russian President is mentioned 54 times and Minister of Foreign Affairs 62 times.

Sentiment sentences coding reveals that most of the sentences possess negative connotation: 458 - very negative and 511 - moderately negative, while there are only 98 sentences with very positive connotation and 255 moderately positive.

3.2 Attitude to Bashar al-Assad in American media

Since the beginning of the conflict, the U.S. has become a direct participant of the Syrian conflict. Firstly, the American President, officials and politicians put this topic on their agenda almost in every meeting or conference. Negative attitude to Syrian President has been palpable as they have stated opinion outright and, inevitably, American mass media has been conveying almost the same message. The number of articles devoted to Bashar al-Assad in each three media outlets is demonstrated in Table 7:

Table 7. Distribution of articles devoted to Bashar al-Assad in American media arranged by year.

Number of articles devoted to Bashar al-Assad	Overall number of articles about Syria	% of articles devoted to Assad
	2011	2012	2013	2014	2015	2016	2017	2018
CNN	434	673	938	961	1,312	1,451	3,014	3,659	43,300	28.7%
NYT	740	1,155	1,168	740	710	1,104	546	762	20,790	33%
Fox News	51	42	114	232	290	554	1,742	952	22,473	18%

According to Table 6, the share of articles about Assad is quite similar in CNN and the New York Times, which share is even bigger (33% against 28.7%). Fox News devoted only 18% of articles to this topic.

Figure 4. Distribution of articles devoted to Bashar al-Assad in American media arranged by year.

Figure 4 illustrates that coverage of CNN was gradually increasing up to 2016, then soared and peaked in 2018. Similar to CNN, the number of Fox News' articles was steadily rising and peaked in 2017. The New York Times, on the contrary, has the highest index in 2012 and 2013, and there was also a rise in 2016 but after that news about Assad reduced by almost half.

Based on quota sampling, 130 This number was obtained by means of adding additional units of analysis due to the correction for uneven distribution of articles over years and media outlets used. articles devoted to the causes of the Syrian war from three media outlets were chosen out of 23,344 articles in total and content analysis was carried out.

Content analysis identified the main themes in the articles concerning Assad, his government, events and issues discussed along with him:

Description of Assad:

- Syrian president

- Syrian leader

- current president

- former president

- brutal dictator

- Syrian dictator

Description of government:

- government blockade

- government forces

- 1982 government assault

- authoritarian government

- government policies

- government security forces

Issues discussed:

- chemical (attack, weapons arsenal)

- reforms (future reforms, human rights, organizational, political, promising)

- air campaign

- air strikes

Description of the events and participants:

- groups (islamic extremist groups, human rights, terror, military)

- activists (Syrian opposition activists, anti-Assad, anti-government, human rights)

External players:

- Western governments

- Western leaders

- anti-Assad coalition forces

As it was already stated, the American position towards the Syrian President has been clear and unambiguous. These results prove that in American media he is mentioned either as the “Syrian president, current president or Syrian leader” or “brutal dictator” with his government being called “authoritarian”.

Some references to his father Hafez Assad also come across: “1982 government assault”, which is an allusion to an uprising which was fiercely suppressed by the “former president”.

Among some important issues that have been on the agenda, the use of chemical weapons is noteworthy because the U.S. administration was extremely vocal about “chemical attacks”, which were allegedly organized by Assad. While discussing Assad, some articles contains debates and calls for “reforms” in Syria.

One more topic that has drawn lots of attention was “air strikes”. Since the U.S. launched its anti-ISIS campaign, not authorized with Syrian government, hundreds of air strikes were conducted against suspected terrorists.

Word frequency analysis identifies the thirty most frequently-used words:

Table 8. Word frequency analysis results in articles dedicated to Bashar al-Assad.

Word	Count	Variations
Syria	1,922	Syria, Syrian
Bashar Assad	1,631	Assad, Assad's
Russia	574	Russia, Russian, Russians
government	506	govern, governance, governed, governing, government, governments
United States	425	Unites States, U.S.
president	418	preside, presided, presidency, president, presidents, presides, presiding
regime	350	regime, regimes
forces	345	force, forced, forceful, forcefully, forces, forces', forces', forcing
opposition	243	opposite, opposition
support	216	support, supported, supporter, supporters, supporting, supports
attack	215	attack, attacked, attackers, attacking, attacks
ISIS	188	ISIS, ISIS'
Damascus	183	Damascus, Damascus'
chemical	179	chemical, chemicals
international	174	internalized, international, internationally
security	173	secure, secured, securely, securing, security
Trump	169<...

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