Snyder and Habermas on the war in Ukraine: a critical discourse analysis of elite media discourse in Germany.

This article presents a critical qualitative study of two opinion articles, written by two eminent scholars (Jürgen Habermas and Timothy Snyder), on the German government's hesitant arms supply for Ukraine during the first phase of the Russian war of aggression in 2022. The main aim of the article i...

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Publicado en:Critical Discourse Studies Vol. 22; no. 5; pp. 494 - 511
Autor principal: Gruber, Helmut
Formato: Artículo
Publicado: Taylor & Francis Ltd Sep2025
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Acceso en línea:Ver este registro en EBSCOhost
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        atl: Snyder and Habermas on the war in Ukraine: a critical discourse analysis of elite media discourse in Germany.
      aug:
        au: Gruber, Helmut
        affil: Department of Linguistics, University of Vienna, Vienna, Austria
      su:
        Discourse analysis
        Russian invasion of Ukraine, 2022-
        Snyder, Timothy D., 1969-
        Intellectuals
        Mass media
        Habermas, Jürgen, 1929-2026
        Ukraine
        Germany
      sug:
        subj:
          Ukraine
          Germany
          Discourse analysis
          Russian invasion of Ukraine, 2022-
          Snyder, Timothy D., 1969-
          Intellectuals
          Mass media
          Habermas, Jürgen, 1929-2026
      keyword:
        critical discourse analysis
        Elite media discourse
        Russo-Ukrainian war
        social actor representation
        topic development
      ab: This article presents a critical qualitative study of two opinion articles, written by two eminent scholars (Jürgen Habermas and Timothy Snyder), on the German government's hesitant arms supply for Ukraine during the first phase of the Russian war of aggression in 2022. The main aim of the article is the uncovering of the discursive practices of critique performed by two major public intellectuals. This case study thus allows insights into the simplistic representation of the Russo-Ukrainian war in German elite media discourse. The analysis focuses on actor representations and topic limitations and manipulations in the two op-eds. It is shown that both Habermas and Snyder use characteristic ways of social actor representations in their texts which exhibit their allegiances. Furthermore, both of them limit and change topics at the meso- and macro-levels of their texts in order to make their arguments sound. In closing, the critical potential of linguistic discourse analysis is shortly addressed by arguing that the context sensitive application of the categories for analyzing discourse can uncover the internal norms to which authors orient which makes them open for a critical analysis.
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