Media coverage of the Russo-Ukraine war beyond the West: Geopolitics and mainstream news in Brazil, India, and South Africa

How closely does news coverage in independent media outlets in non-Western countries follow domestic political elites’ interpretations of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine? And how much attention do newsrooms pay to geopolitical aspects of the issue compared to domestic considerations? This study moves beyond a still prevailing Euro- and US-centric perspective by focusing on Brazil, India and South Africa, three democratic countries with close economic and political ties to Russia. The authors systematically compare the wording used by elite politicians to describe the events in Ukraine with that in mainstream news reports. They also analyse the salience of political leaders and geopolitical entities (countries and intergovernmental organizations) in news coverage. For the use of descriptive terminology, they find no evidence for news reporting to be indexed to government wording. Their analysis of references to geopolitical actors shows news media’s strong propensity for domesticating the war for their respective national audiences.