Geopolitical conflicts and opinion dynamics : Georgian crisis (2008) in the miror of French and Russian newspapers

The authors screen a set of French and Russian daily newspapers with different political and thematic orientations from 2005 to 2017 revealing the changing perceptions of the crisis arround Georgian breakaway regions (Abkhazia and South Ossetia) depending on political situation and the interests of the main actors. They apply a combination of qualitative and quantitaive methods ranging from discourse analysis to statistical modeling. First, the media attention to the crisis is shown. Second, they demonstrate the process of geopolitical scaling in their interpretative frames. Third, they focus on the evolution of narratives through time and the degree of national consensus in the vision of conflicts’ reasons and perspectives. In conclusion, they discuss the potential of their method for further studies of the dynamics of public opinion on geopolitical conflicts and its volatility.