Salisbury tragedy: the news of the week’s narrative of Skripal case

Abstract

This paper is the second part in the series of studies into the media impact on the transformation of the social and cultural structures in which societies operate. The authors (International Research Group KVAR) describe the results of a quantitative and qualitative analysis of transcripts of twenty-seven episodes of the “Vesti Nedeli” television program (Rossiya 1, 2018) depicting the mysterious poisoning of Sergei and Yulia Skripal. The aim of this study is to find out in what way the journalists of “Vesti Nedeli” narrate and interpret the events in Salisbury. Based on C. Booker‘ classification, the authors explore the specific traits of the story plot about the Skripals case. The analysis leads to the conclusion that it is not the Skripals who are at the center of the narration but the United Kingdom and its attitude to Russia. The study identifies the narrative force drivers and the main actors and their subject-object roles: this is one of seven basic plots.