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JOURNAL OF EASTERN EUROPEAN AND CENTRAL ASIAN RESEARCH Vol 1, No 2 (2014)
www.ieeca.org/journal 1
THE CRISIS IN CRIMEA – “VOICES” FROM CANADA:
A QUALITATIVE STUDY
Brent McKenzie
University of Guelph, ON, Canada
ABSTRACT
With the movement of Russian troops into the Crimean peninsula, and the subsequent vote on secession from Ukraine and
joining with Russia, many voices wanted to be heard. The focus of this study is to provide insight as to the views from an
interested, but arguably neutral player in the discussion; the second largest country in the world, but one with the third largest
population of those with Ukrainian heritage outside of Ukraine and Russia, Canada. Newspaper articles from the period of the
crisis from February and March 2014 were collected and analyzed. The articles were published in three national newspapers and
also three newspapers with a significant population of those with Ukrainian heritage. Evidence from this sample of suggests that
there was a dominance of negative coverage as to the role of Russia consistent with prior research. The articles reviewed were
found to present non-neutral coverage particularly through opinion pieces, which also tended to be both longer and more
frequently published than neutral, or alternative articles.
Keywords: Crimean crisis, Canada, newspaper articles, content analysis
DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.15549/jeecar.v1i2.63
INTRODUCTION
When regional and world events occur, it is not only
the players that are directly involved in the situation that
take a position in its outcome. Often there are many voices
that wish to be heard. With respect to the Crimean crisis,
there were two directly involved countries, Ukraine and
Russia, but there were also regional interests such as the
neighboring countries (including those that have large
Russian speaking minorities). These countries raised the
speech as to the what, why (now), and future of both the
geographic integrity of Ukraine itself, but of equal
importance, the question of who has a say in these types of
international interests.
The focus of this study is to provide insight as to the
views from such a third party, that of the second largest
country in the world, Canada. But why Canada? Although
Canada’s vast land mast results in a border with Russia in
the north, Canada has little direct connection to either
country in terms of significant trade and history, but what
Canada does have is a very large population of Canadians
with Ukrainian heritage. This is particularly strong in
Canada’s three Prairie Provinces of Alberta, Saskatchewan,
and Manitoba:
The Prairie provinces absorbed the bulk of the first two
waves of immigration, displaced persons settled
mainly in Ontario… in the early 1990s, approximately
15 per cent of the residents of Winnipeg, Edmonton,
and Saskatoon had at least some Ukrainian heritage.
In 2006, 52 per cent of Ukrainian Canadians resided in
the Prairie provinces.
(http://www.thecanadianencyclopedia.ca/en/article/ukr
ainian-canadians)
A secondary focus of this study is to better understand
if the examination of published media opinions and
perspectives from a “neutral” perspective are more or less
likely to provide a balance against similar media assertions
of those directly involved in a conflict; in this case,
Ukraine and Russia. There is an extensive history of
research that has examined the question of “truth” as it
pertains to what is published in newspapers (Wattenberg,
1937). There also exist a number of studies that have
compared how different countries have reported the same
event such as the Holocaust (Holmila, 2011), and the war
in Iraq (Rusciano, 2010). What has been less studied, has
been the contribution of such an analysis in terms of the
historical interpretation and legacies of ongoing and
dynamic events as they unfold.
The definition of the term “neutral” is drawn from the
lexicon of sport, particularly international football, to
denote those that are actively involved in a situation (i.e. a
football match) but are not directly part of either team.
Thus for this study, a “Neutral country” is defined as one
that does not have a direct involvement in a geopolitical
occurrence, but does take a position in the situation. As
noted, one could argue that Canada is not a neutral country,
given the stated size of the Canadian population with
Ukrainian heritage. In the 2011 Canadian census,
Ukrainian was Canada's ninth largest ethnic group, and the
third-largest Ukrainian population outside of Ukraine and
Russia (1.2 million, compared to the 500 thousand with
Russian heritage in Canada) (Canadian Census, 2011). By
comparison the United States with a population over nine
times that of Canada has less than 1 million of Ukrainian
heritage (http://usa.mfa.gov.ua/en/ukraine-us/ukrainians-in-
us).
In order to better understand the position of a country
such as Canada in the Crimean situation, newspaper
articles that focused on the issue were collected and
analyzed. The articles that were examined were published
in three national newspapers and also three newspapers
with a significant population of those with Ukrainian
heritage. The period of analysis covers the days leading up
to the start of the tensions until days that followed the
The Crisis in Crimea – “Voices” From Canada: A Qualitative Study. Brent McKenzie
www.ieeca.org/journal 2
secession vote in Crimea. Thus the study takes a
qualitative research perspective of investigation.
RESEARCH BACKGROUND
There exists extensive literature about the role of the
press in terms of framing the discussion about world events
from a domestic perspective (Holtz-Bacha and Strömbäck,
2012). Although the neutrality, or the more correctly
stated independence of the press, even in open
democracies, the media historically often taken specific
positions on events based on the ownership or stated
philosophy of the organization (Streitmatter, 2012).
There are numerous examples of the impact of
newspapers articles on shaping political views. The media
in Great Britain have been has been credited with its
modernization (Anthony, 2012; Ross, 2008), while the
seeds of the revolutions in France (Leith, 1974) and Cuba
(Guerra, 2012) were often attributed to being moulded by
the publishing of newspapers and commentaries. The
introduction of the radio to the masses in the 20th century,
also helped to both inform and influence political opinions
(Welch, 1993).
Although newspapers were selected as the media of
analysis, other types of media have been used to better
understand this type of research. Following the radio age,
as noted by Drummond et al. (1993), the introduction of
television played a large role of the shaping of political
positions, particularly in countries such as the United
States. The presidential campaign of 1960, between John
F. Kennedy and Richard Nixon represented one of the
earliest examples of where the medium of television was
attributed to have had an effect on the outcome of an
election (Druckman, 2003). This tradition has continued to
the present day through the use of the online media
(Berenger, 2013).
The Crimean Situation – Voices from Canada
The government of Canada’s position on the Crimean
situation mirrored that of many nations. There was stated
support for the 1994 Budapest Declaration's commitment
to Ukraine's territorial sovereignty, and Canada’s Prime
Minister Stephen Harper openly stated support for Ukraine,
and denouncement of the actions of Russia (Chase, 2014).
This position was also supported by all national parties, as
evidenced by a unanimous motion was passed by the
Canadian parliament on March 3 condemning Russia's
actions in the Crimea (Janus, 2014).
Canada’s support mirrored that of many but not all
countries. Armenia, Belarus, Bolivia, Cuba, Nicaragua,
North Korea, Sudan, Syria, and Zimbabwe to various
degrees supported, or did not oppose Russia’s actions. The
Canadian media discussed this support and provided
detailed descriptions of why these countries would support
Russia’s action (Matthews, 2014). There was also
criticism of Canada’s position by Russia specifically, and
others who openly questioned Canada’s stance due to the
lack of trade relations between the two countries, the
hollowness of any sanctions that Canada could impose, and
the stated Ukrainian heritage population in Canada
(Mandryk, 2014; Zhyznomirska, 2014).
Data Collection
As the focus of this research was to provide a greater
understanding of the Crimean crisis, from a third
party/nation perspective, it was determined that qualitative
research methods would be employed. The selected
methodology was that of content analysis of newspaper
articles (Brunskill, 1976). In this case it was an analysis of
newspaper stories about the Crimean situation from the
period of February 23rd until March 31st, 2014. The
starting date represents the day after the end of the Sochi
Winter Olympics, and the end date represents a period after
the vote and annexation of the Crimean peninsula to
Russia.
The source of the articles for analysis, were three
national newspapers and three local/regional newspapers.
The national newspapers were, The National Post
(www.nationalpost.com), The Toronto Star
(www.thestart.com) and the Globe and Mail
(www.theglobeandmail.com). These newspapers represent
a total circulation over six million readers a week, and all
have a printed copy readily available across Canada. All
three papers are based out of Canada’s largest city Toronto,
Ontario.
The three local/regional newspapers selected were the
Edmonton Journal (www.edmontonjournal.com), published
in the capital city the province of Alberta; The
Star/Phoenix (www.thestarphoenix.com) published in the
largest city in the province of Saskatchewan, Saskatoon;
The Winnipeg Free Press (winnipegfreepress.com),
published in the capital city of Manitoba. Not surprisingly
these three, in comparison to the national newspapers, have
a smaller 1.5 million readers a week, but were selected as
these cities, and provinces, as noted, represent the largest
concentration of Canadians with Ukrainian heritage.
Table 1. Newspapers Reviewed and Total of Articles –
Feb. 23 – Mar. 31, 2014
Newspapers
Number of
Articles Feb.
23 – Mar. 31
Globe & Mail (National) 58
National Post (National) 56
Toronto Star (National) 56
Edmonton Journal (Provincial
- Alberta)
30
StarPhoenix (Provincial -
Saskatchewan)
44
Winnipeg Free Press
(Provincial - Manitoba)
09
The stated purpose and mission of the newspapers
varied. For example, The Edmonton Journal’s mission
statement is, “to provide relevant and reliable news and
The Crisis in Crimea – “Voices” From Canada: A Qualitative Study. Brent McKenzie
www.ieeca.org/journal 3
information to the Edmonton community”, and The Globe
and Mail’s, while not official, is “Canada's newspaper of
record". There are a number of Ukrainian newspapers in
Canada including the Ukrainian News (Edmonton);
Ukrainian Voice (Winnipeg); and new sections on the site
of the Ukrainian Canadian Congress (http://www.ucc.ca),
but none of the newspapers selected for the study would be
considered overt voices for Ukrainian issues and causes.
The newspapers were searched using the ProQuest
database system for the stated period of study. Article
titles were searched looking for the terms; “Russia”;
“Crimea(n)” and “Ukraine(ians)”. The search resulted in
253 unique articles. Table I summarizes the totals by each
publication.
DATA ANALYSIS
As this study utilized qualitative research techniques,
the newspaper articles were analyzed using both content
analysis (Scharrer, 2002), and modified thematic analysis
(Ponnam & Dawra, 2013). Content analysis was
conducted by way of key words counts, while the
identification of themes was determined by expert analysis
and operationalized by way of word cloud generation
(Puretskiy et al., 2010).
As stated above, the key words of “Russia”;
“Crimea(n)” and “Ukraine(ians)”, were selected to guide
the search of the newspapers. Although in general for
content analysis the process attempts to establish the key
word categories or themes of interest from the data itself,
as the focus of this research was a specific event or
occurrence, the words selected for search aligned with that
purpose (i.e. the Crimean situation).
After the search of the key words, the article titles were
reviewed to come up with descriptive words that would
provide a greater understanding of the position of the
article. The search, by way of content analysis resulted in a
list of ten key words (see Table 2) that were mentioned
more than once in an article title, representing 64, or
approximately 25% of all the articles.
Table 2. Summary of Key Word Descriptors
Key Word Number of Articles
Crisis 18
West(ern) 13
Sanctions 06
Protest(ors) 05
Conflict 05
Aggression 04
Standoff 04
East(ern) 04
Support 03
Chaos 02
The next step was to take the 10 terms and group and
assign the instances into categories. As used by Jones et al.
(2010), the purpose of the themes selected was to present a
consolidation of the phenomenon of interest in a way that
allows for interpretation and discussion. The themes can
occur at an observable level (i.e. the number of articles per
newspaper), or at a latent level, in which the themes
indirectly indicate the aim or focus of the article or the
overt or implicit position of the publication.
For this research, the focus was on examining if there
are any identifiable similarities or differences in the tone of
the discussion of the Crimean situation based on the scope
of the newspapers’ audiences (i.e. national or regional).
Based on the ten key words, there the articles generated
three latent themes, which are named Participants
[(West(ern); East(ern); Protest(ors)]; Action [Aggression;
Support; Sanctions]; and Response [Crisis; Chaos]. The
categories of classification theme were made by the author,
and were reviewed with independent judges who supported
the classification scheme (Cunningham et al, 2000). The
value of such a classification scheme is to provide greater
insight to the role of “National” and “Local” newspapers in
providing readers with a similar or different view of the
“truth”. For example, in relative terms, the “National”
newspapers, being that they have a larger and more varied
readership, would intuitively see their role in terms of more
informative and explanatory articles, while the “Local”
newspapers, with a higher concentration of readers of
Ukrainian heritage would see their role as aligning more
with their audience, who it would be assumed would also
be consuming news on the Crimean crisis from Ukrainian
media outlets. The focus of the published articles would be
more on what should be done, rather than what has been
done. The summary of the classifications is shown in
Table 3. Alternatively, due to the nature of qualitative
research methods, it can be argued that the reviewed
articles merely reflect the views of the Canadian people.
Table 3. Classification of Key Themes by Publication
Key Theme
Number of
Articles
National
Number of
Articles
Provincial
Participants 17 07
Action 09 04
Response 15 02
Additional Classifications
As the selection of newspapers for analysis were solely
Canadian, there was an expectation that the “Canadian”
perspective of the Crimean situation would take a role of
prominence. In order to determine the level of “Canadian-
The Crisis in Crimea – “Voices” From Canada: A Qualitative Study. Brent McKenzie
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ness” of the articles published during the period of study,
additional categories for analysis were created. There were
four such categories, which are “Political”, “Educational”,
“Local” and “Balanced”. These are reviewed in turn.
“Political” articles relate to how the situation in
Ukraine was used to develop, support, or promote
Canadian political motives. Examples included overt
references to the use of the situation for local political
motives, “Ukraine: Politicizing Foreign Affairs” (Toronto
Star, March, 1, 2014), as well as the role of the
government’s reaction to the event in Ukraine, “Harper at
his Best on Crimea File” (National Post, March 26, 2014).
Other articles consisted of documenting the purely partisan
rhetoric, and the politicizing of governmental actions with
respect to the situation, such as “Statesmen missing on the
this plane; Wrong to bar NDP, Liberals from Ukraine trip”
(National Post, February 28, 2014) which related to the
Canadian government not allowing opposition members of
parliament from taking part in a trip to Ukraine during the
crisis.
The second category, “Educational” includes pieces
that provided readers with a greater understanding of the
history of the Crimean peninsula. There were articles that
delivered specific insights on the historical context of
Crimea “Crimea has long history at centre of regional
conflicts” (Globe and Mail, February 27, 2014), and more
general overviews of Ukraine, “Some Facts about Ukraine”
(National Post, March 1, 2014). As the crisis and the
subsequent succession vote drew near, contextual insights
as to what may occur next were published, “A Crimean
history lesson; Too many dead; Russians will never accept
loss of Crimea” (National Post, March 6, 2014).
“Local” articles were those that applied the Crimean
situation from a local/regional Canadian perspective.
These articles were found in the three newspapers from the
provinces with large Ukrainian heritage populations. There
were examples of articles that specifically placed the
conflict within the context of the local population,
“Saskatchewan’s Ukrainian community rallies” (Star-
Phoenix, February 24, 2014), as well as the impact of the
crisis on local Ukrainian programs, “Crimea puts
University of Alberta Alumnus in spotlight; Ukraine’s New
Foreign Minster Studied Here”, (Edmonton Journal, March
7, 2014). Larger Ukrainian issues and events were also
found in the regional newspapers. “The Roots of Ukrainian
Immigration Survive and Grow”, (Star-Phoenix, March 4,
2014) and summaries of Canadian based events that related
to the crisis, “Hundreds Show Support for Ukraine at
Rally”, (Edmonton Journal, March 13, 2014) being
representative examples.
The fourth category of articles labelled, “Balanced”
were those articles that attempted to provide an alternative
voice (i.e. Russian), or one that helped to present a greater
understanding of why the Crimean situation was
happening. Not surprisingly there were few that fell into
this category (i.e. 3), which included one that linked
Ukrainian corruption, “Ukraine’s Legacy of Serial
Oligarchy”, (Globe and Mail, March 14, 2014) and a
summary of those columnists who justified Russia’s
position, “Pundits Turn Reality on is head over Crimea
Invasion; Mainstream writers Blame Russian Aggression
on NATO Expansion” (Edmonton Journal, March 18,
2014).
Ukrainian and Russian Media Reports
As the review of specific Ukrainian and Russian media
reports was outside the realm of the study, a high level
summary of media reports with respect to these newspaper
reports was made. This was done to address a secondary
focus of this research, that a “neutral” country can best
provide a more balanced view of the “truth” in comparison
to the directly involved players.
In order to provide a comparative analysis, only
English language articles that reported about/by Ukrainian
and Russia media actions were examined. In terms of
Russian media, headlines such as “Crimean authorities to
disable biased Ukrainian TV channels” (www.pravda.ru,
March 4, 2014); “Most Russians Would Back Kremlin In
Case of War With Ukraine, Poll Says”
(www.moscowtimes.com, April 1, 2014); and “Top 5
Myths About Russia’s Invasion of Crimea”
(www.sptimes.ru, March 11, 2014) supported the
expectation that Russian media would be positioned
supporting the Russian actions, as well as denigrating
Ukrainian concerns. In terms of Ukrainian media,
headlines include, “80% of Ukrainians distrust Russian
media”, (http://www.ukrinform.ua, May 20, 2014);
“Crimea is being converted into a hot spot”
(www.day.kiev.ua/en, March 18, 2014); and “Ukraine to
sue Russia for $85 billion in Crimean annexation losses”
(www.ukranianjournal.com, June 3, 2014), aligned in a
similar manner. Although limited in scope, this type of
analysis reinforces the need for analysis of “neutral”
voices in being better able ascertain the “facts” of event
such as this.
Word Cloud
Finally, in order to provide a visual interpretation of
the newspaper articles, the headlines were entered into
word cloud software, Wordle (www.wordle.net). All
headlines were first entered into the software. The
resulting word cloud is not surprising as the dominant
terms, Ukraine, Russia, and Crimea stood out (Figure 1).
Figure 1. Word Cloud of Headlines – Feb. 23 – Mar. 31,
2014
DISCUSSION
This is one of the first known studies to systematically
analyze the tone of specific media coverage of the Crimean
The Crisis in Crimea – “Voices” From Canada: A Qualitative Study. Brent McKenzie
www.ieeca.org/journal 5
situation in Canada. As a country that, as suggested, is
“neutral”, there was a strong consistency in both the
number of and tone of the articles reviewed during the
period of study. Although one of the aims of a newspaper
is to report “the news” (Jones, 2009), the stories examined
also provided commentary and rational for an “anti-Russia”
position.
There were few articles that attempted to justify
Russia’s annexation of the Crimean peninsula, although as
noted the “Educational” articles did provide historical
context at the Crimea’s place within Russia/Soviet Union.
The results tended to support the popular position of
Canadians opposition to Russia’s annexation of the
Crimean Peninsula and that the vast majority of the articles
sided with that position. It may not be surprising that the
consistently negative tone about Russia’s action were
almost universal for the regional newspapers, but it was of
interest to see that some articles did try and both educate
Canadian readers about the history of the region, but also
to educate readers as to historic examples of other
geographic land expansion.
The articles reviewed as they related to Russian
President Putin’s personal role in this situation were
especially negatively. Of the articles reviewed, almost
10% mentioned Putin directly in the article title only while
only five articles mentioned ousted Ukrainian President
Viktor Yanukovych (interestingly Petro Poroshenko who
succeeded Yanukovych was not mentioned anywhere in
any of the articles). The arguably negative coverage, from
a Russian position, attempted to associate the events of the
annexation with other Russian actions. There were a
number of articles that referred to Russian/Soviet actions in
Georgia, South Ossetia, and Kosovo.
The evidence from this sample of articles suggests that
multiple newspapers presented a fairly consistent situation.
While the articles that reported the news and events in the
region tended to include ongoing recaps of the actions
occurring in the region, the “commentary” articles were
more uniform in their position. Clearly, the dominance of
negative coverage as to the role of Russia and the lesser
focus on the events in Ukraine that arguably lead to this
situation represent an area for questioning. If the role of a
newspaper is to present the news as well as commentary,
then one may be left with the impression that the editorial
policy of the newspapers merely mirrors that of the general
public. Alternatively, one could suggest that the lack of
significant trade, and limited Russian heritage population
in Canada has shaped the discussion. Although it was
beyond the scope of this study to address this question, it
does help to bring light to the stated concern that the media
no longer reports but rather reflects public opinion
(Mcpherson, 2012).
Consistent with prior research, the articles reviewed
were found to present non-neutral coverage particularly
through opinion pieces, which also tended to be both
longer and more frequently published than neutral, or
alternative articles. Negative articles were also more likely
to focus on the wider context of events occurring in
Ukraine and the region while the neutral or alternative
position articles tended to strictly address the specifics of
the Crimean annexation.
Relatively few positive stories were found within this
analysis, with positive being classified with respect to
future actions. As the situation in Ukraine continued to be
fluid, particularly with the shooting down of a civilian
airliner over Eastern Ukraine in July 2014 (Gidda, 2014)
by Russian backed separatists in Eastern Ukraine, it can be
suggested that this type of research is better suited for
analysis of events more distant in the past. This may be a
valid criticism, but by examining events within a timely
manner, one can get a greater understanding of how the
press chooses to both develop a narrative about specific
events, but also to better understand the degree in which
the media is driven by other outside variables (i.e. in this
case the question of political bias for Canadian political
parties) principally that of catering to the already
established positions of their readers. Finally, the review
of articles from Russian and Ukrainian media further
supported the value to be gained from examining media
reporting from a “neutral” country during ongoing
political, social, and economic crises such as this.
Limitations
As is the case in all qualitative research studies, there
are potential limitations (Miller et al. 2013). Firstly, the
findings were reflective of the newspapers selected and
may not be generalizable to other newspapers, both within
and outside of Canada. As stated, the selected newspapers
serviced different markets and have different circulation
levels, and thus readership, as well as a different
management and ownership. Secondly, there is the
possibility that some relevant articles were missed as the
full newspaper content was not reviewed, which is a
challenge in conducting this type of study.
Finally, as the research utilized content analysis of a
large number of articles this type of study may benefit from
more in-depth qualitative analysis of each article to provide
a greater depth or understanding of the newspaper
positions. Although there appeared to be little additional
information provide by the analysis of utilizing a word
cloud, it none-the-less helped to enhance the specific text
analysis, for this type of study further manipulation of the
terms may also be of interest. It is suggested that this level
of analysis could provide an enhanced understanding of
more nuanced and potentially other biased positions based
on this types of emotionally charged topic.
CONCLUSIONS
It can be argued that the predominance of the negative
coverage, as it pertains to the actions of Russia, helped to
shape Canadian opinion and understanding of the situation
in Ukraine and the Crimean peninsula. Alternatively it can
be suggested that the newspapers, both regional and
national, were merely reflecting existing beliefs by
Canadians and Ukrainian Canadians about Russia and the
regime under President Putin, and that the specifics of the
actions as they related to the Crimean situation were
accepted as fact as they aligned with these preconceived
ideas. What is questioned is the role that these types of
articles could or did play in terms of actually educating the
reader as to the situations in the region, and provided a
balanced context in terms of allowing the reader to make
The Crisis in Crimea – “Voices” From Canada: A Qualitative Study. Brent McKenzie
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up their own mind.
In brief, with the ever-greater challenges that
newspapers face in terms of declining readership and
economic struggles, this type of study helps to raise
attention to how politically charged actions are interpreted
and supported or refuted. It is suggested future inquiry
could utilize this type of research methodology for similar
newsworthy events particularly those with strong ethnic,
cultural, and historical significance.
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ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Brent McKenzie, email: bmckenzi@uoguelph.ca
Dr. Brent McKenzie is Associate Professor, Department
of Marketing and Consumer Studies, College of
Business and Economics, at the University of Guelph,
in Guelph, Ontario, Canada. He is also a holder of an
Academic Research Fellowship with the Estonian
Studies Centre, and Tartu College, in Toronto, Canada.
Dr. McKenzie is an expert on management and
business related issues in the Baltic States of Estonia,
Latvia, and Lithuania. He has engaged in extensive
research fieldwork, and conducted workshops and
presentations in these countries. His research on the
Baltic States has been published by academic as well
as practitioner journals.
