Framing Nuclearity: Online Media Discourses in Lithuania

Abstract

This article refers to the concept of nuclearity as a broader technopolitical phenomenon that implies a political and cultural configuration of technical and scientific matters. The nuclear media discourses become a site of tensions, struggles, and power relations between various institutions, social groups, and agents who seek to frame nuclear issues. The Bourdieusian concept of a field as a domain of social interaction is employed by the authors of this article seeking to reveal interactions and power configurations within and between several fields: journalism and media, economy, politics, and cultural production fields (cinematography, literature, and art). Commercial and political pressures on media raise a question about the autonomy of this field. Media coverage of nuclear issues in Lithuania during the period 2018-2020, includes media framing produced by different sponsors of the nuclear media discourses and agents from the above-mentioned fields of journalism, nuclear industry, politics, cinematography or arts. The media coverage includes the news and press releases produced within PR and public communication of the atomic energy industry by representing the decommissioning of the Ignalina Nuclear Power Plant, articles written by journalists about the atomic city Visaginas, and challenges faced by the local community due to the closure of the Ignalina Nuclear Power Plant. The nuclear discourse includes debates by politicians around the topic of the lack of safety of the construction of the Astravyets Nuclear Power Plant in Belarus, and media coverage of the HBO series Chernobyl representing a strong antinuclear narrative by portraying the Chernobyl disaster crisis and expressing strong criticism of communism. The authors of this article carried out a qualitative content analysis of media coverage on nuclear issues and revealed features of the discourse: interpretative packages, frames, framing devices (Gamson & Modigliani, 1989), and dominating actors and institutions supporting the discourse.