TRANSFORMATION OF MEDIA NARRATIVES ABOUT UKRAINE’S EURO-ATLANTIC INTEGRATION

Abstract

The article presents a comprehensive analysis of the transformation of media narratives about Ukraine’s Euro-Atlantic integration within the time span of 2000–2025. It demonstrates that the evolution of media discourse around NATO reflects profound changes in Ukraine’s system of political culture, information policy, and social identity. The study reveals how communicative emphases in Ukrainian media have shifted – from the geopolitical rhetoric of a “choice between East and West” to the concepts of “collective security” and “information sovereignty.” It is shown that after 2014, security journalism became a central factor in shaping narratives about NATO as a guarantor of peace, and after 2022 – as a partner in the joint resistance to hybrid aggression.
The study proves that Ukrainian media perform not only the function of retransmission but also the construction of national identity, within which Euro-Atlantic integration is perceived as a strategy of political self-affirmation. An interdisciplinary approach (institutional, content, discourse, and comparative analysis) was applied, allowing to generalize the regularities of the transformation of communicative frameworks – from political rhetoric to the cultural and value-oriented discourse of collective security.
Based on the conducted analysis, the main problems of modern media narratives were identified: regional disparities in their dissemination, excessive officialization of state messages, lack of stable coordination between state and independent media, insufficient use of digital platforms, and the imperfection of communication effectiveness assessment systems. The directions for improvement are proposed: establishing network-based interaction between journalists and government communicators, developing narrative journalism, creating a system for narrative monitoring, and introducing Euro-Atlantic modules into journalism education programs.
It is summarized that the transformation of media narratives about Euro-Atlantic integration is not only a process of adapting the information space to NATO standards but also an element of the democratic modernization of Ukrainian society that strengthens its agency, European identity, and resilience in confronting hybrid threats.