(Person) Percentage - Sabanci University Research Database

The Asian Media & Mass Communication Conference 2010 Osaka, Japan
The linguistic units employed within these examples such as “Russian Empire,” “Russia’s
invasion of Georgia,” “aggression from Russia” and etc. convey negative connotations in the
texts.
Simultaneously, some ambiguities in the opinion emerge as the U.S. media elaborates on the idea
who started the war on August 7, 2008.
“The accounts are neither fully conclusive nor broad enough to settle the many lingering disputes over
blame in a war that hardened relations between the Kremlin and the West. But they raise questions about
the accuracy and honesty of Georgia’s insistence that its shelling of Tskhinvali, the capital of the
breakaway region of South Ossetia, was a precise operation. Georgia has variously defended the shelling as
necessary to stop heavy Ossetian shelling of Georgian villages, bring order to the region or counter a
Russian invasion.” (New York Times, Nov. 7, 2008)
However, the media sympathy towards Georgia is revealed with regard to the depiction of
Georgian IDPs as U.S. military officials continue to verbally support Georgia’s pro-western
policy and offer further assistance to the “ally”.
“But even though European monitors have long been on the ground, Russia still holds large areas that had
irrefutably been under Georgian control, and thousands of Georgians have not been allowed free access
to homes far from the disputed territory where the war began.” (New York Times, April 3, 2009).
“The Georgians have been quite clear that they were shelling targets – the mayor’s office, police
headquarters –that had been used for military purposes,” said Matthew J. Bryza, a deputy assistant
secretary of state and one of Mr. Saakashvili’s vocal supporters in Washington.” (Nov. 7, 2008)
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