Seizing the narrative in a global information war: Examining president Volodymyr Zelenskyy’s media communication strategy

Publication Type

Journal Article

Publication Date

1-2026

Abstract

PurposeWhen Russia invaded Ukraine on February 24, 2022, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy confronted the aggressors on the military front while galvanising Ukrainians and fighting a parallel war on the information battlefield. This study examines Zelenskyy’s communication strategy in the first 100 days of the conflict and his use of mainstream media to share the Ukrainian story globally. It also aims to provide an opportunity in modern history to explore communication led by a head of state.Design/methodology/approachThis case study focuses on Zelenskyy’s external communication with the global mainstream media and evaluates his 77 official speeches and interview transcripts within the first 100 days. Using the inductive categorisation approach (Berg, 2009), a comprehensive dataset analysis was made to distill the different message types, media platforms used, target audiences and any embedded rhetorical elements. These were evaluated using the stakeholder theory (Freeman, 2002), mediating the media model (Pang, 2010) and information vacuum (Pang, 2013; Woon and Pang, 2017) as the study’s theoretical lens.FindingsZelenskyy focused on four key audience groups in the first 100 days of the conflict and scaffolded his audience engagement at different points in time. He tailored his rhetoric specifically to the country of his audiences and dominated the information space by using first-person accounts to connect with audiences, ensuring disinformation and alternate narratives were debunked. His use of “direct video press release” enabled mainstream media globally to report him as they were a ready form of information subsidy.Research limitations/implicationsThis study contributed to understanding Zelenskyy’s efforts in identifying targeted audiences and his curated communication strategy. Zelenskyy understood the prevailing contexts of his messages, saturated the information space on multiple platforms and sought to eliminate countervailing narratives, particularly from Russia, from forming in the information vacuum (Pang, 2013). As this study was focused on how he leveraged mainstream media, future studies could examine how he leveraged social media that were harnessed in communication. Zelenskyy’s verbal and non-verbal cues could also be examined to understand how this may influence stakeholder perceptions.Practical implicationsThe study found practical lessons to show how Zelenskyy engaged with different audiences who could directly and indirectly influence Ukraine’s defence against Russian aggression and aligned his communication with his national strategic objectives even as the conflict unfolded. These can serve as a foundational framework for national leaders navigating crises in today’s information landscape and provide valuable insights into effective leadership and crisis communication.Originality/valueFew studies have examined how a leader communicates in times of crises, specifically one of such scale with international involvement. This study is a nascent attempt to do so, with the hope that it would provide critical insights into effective media communication and lay the groundwork for future research in this evolving field.

Keywords

Communication strategy; Governmental communication; Mass media; Media relations; Media strategy

Discipline

Communication Technology and New Media | Public Relations and Advertising

Research Areas

Corporate Communication

Publication

Journal of Communication Management

Volume

30

Issue

1

First Page

128

Last Page

142

ISSN

1363-254X

Identifier

10.1108/JCOM-09-2024-0182

Publisher

Emerald

External URL

https://api.elsevier.com/content/abstract/scopus_id/86000465186

Additional URL

https://doi.org/10.1108/JCOM-09-2024-0182

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