Discursive Framing of National Security Concerns in Romanian Media’s Coverage of the Russian-Ukrainian Conflict

This chapter examines narrative strategies that frame national security concerns in the Romanian media’s reporting on the Ukraine-Russia war (2022–2024). With both automated and manual methods of Critical Discourse Analysis, the study examines articles from the three most read news websites in Romania to spotlight dominant framing strategies that represent top security concerns at the national level. By analyzing the collocates of such keywords as “threat,” “fear,” or “instability,” the study catalogues a range of media narratives and thematic domains, documenting the characteristic rhetorical and informational strategies of war reporting. It illustrates how the main national concerns generated by the Russian-Ukrainian conflict (security threats, historical fears, regional instability) are represented, and how key actors (Russia, Ukraine, NATO, EU) are positioned in terms of power and threat. The study contributes to a deeper understanding of how news discourse framing strategies shape public perception of conflicts.