Visual politics, emotions, and ukrainian collective power; us ukrainians (attacked) vs. them russians (aggressors)

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Visual politics, emotions, and ukrainian collective power; us ukrainians (attacked) vs. them russians (aggressors)

Faruk Hadzic

Independent Researcher/Scholar,

various scientific organizations' membership, (Bosnia and Herzegovina)

Vision is always a question of the power to see and perhaps of the violence implicit in our visualizing practices. From wars to terrorist attacks to revolutions, our perceptions of significant world events are strongly influenced by the images we see from the ground. We live in a visual era. Television, film, documentaries, photographs, traditional and contemporary media, and arts decisively influence how we perceive and how we cope and deal with political phenomena as diverse as war, terrorism, refugee crisis, election campaigns, or financial crises. However, we need to learn more about this visual power's exact nature and impact. Interpretative struggles of global crises are increasingly being reflected on social media networks.

The history of world politics is marked by the universal and the particular, the inside and the outside, the balance of power, and the symmetry and actuality of chaos. If these metaphors are the basis for how we understand world politics today, then they also shape how we remember past events in world politics and anticipate its future.

Conflicts, wars, and all parties involved are typically portrayed with visuals, such as media photos, web portals, photo blocks, or computer-crafted images. While photos give an image of the reality on the ground, they present only a selection. They can be expressly created to depict a specific understanding of an issue. In the Russian - Ukraninian war, or explicitly Russian aggression on Ukraine, traditional and social media have flooded the public and political space with images of the war and its major conflict parties, Russia and Ukraine, and international actors - Eastern versus Western bloc. Visual representations within visual politics often transport many emotions, influencing identity politics and, in this case, Ukraine - Russia warfare - collective mobilization. Ukrainian people's collective power, civic mobilization, nation, government, and military showed tremendous motivation, determination, and courage. In this war in Ukraine, images are used to evoke emotions and thereby mobilize into action. However, these visuals, or visual politics or visual militarization and their emotional framings, also represent the conflict parties in simplified ways, with overly optimistic representations of the Self and overly negative representations of the Other. It strengthens the dichotomous association and the view of «Us» versus «Them.» Thus the order Us - Attacked versus Them - Agressors. This working paper focuses on the representations of visuals and emotions and the reception of such visuals, perception, and expression of emotions of Ukrainians. The author extends

perceived academic approaches regarding visual production in war, conflict, militarism, visual politics, collective mobilization, identity, patriotism, and emotions by studying various themes, including geopolitics, subjectivity, biography, narrative construction, commemoration, identity politics, emotions, and memory construction. The author considers how visual representations of conflict shape the meanings of politically significant events, specific social and identity formations, and collective mobilization of subject positions and enacted roles. The paper investigates a set of representational visuals in media, including printmaking, photography, and digital imaging, and the use to which they have been put to generate and mediate realities of conflict. The study investigates the impact on behavior, people mobilization, identity politics, and government policies. The aim is to explore visual framings in web portals and traditional and social media of the war in Ukraine. It discusses how visuals by Ukrainians and their Western supporters shape a particular understanding of the war, stimulate emotions, shapes identity politics, and mobilize within the discourse Us - Attacked versus Them - Agressors.

The world has been stunned by the remarkable strength and courage demonstrated by the Ukrainians, while Russia has been taken entirely by surprise. In the build-up to the invasion, Russia relied on self-serving intelligence reports and cyber propaganda that dismissed Ukraine's national spirit and predicted the capitulation of Ukraine within weeks. Russias's invasion of Ukraine has exposed the often shambolic realities behind Russia's imperialism and authoritarianism within the identity politics discourse of protecting and uniting Russians in every entity, state, or region. In the last year, the Ukrainian people have remained defiant despite the occupation, sieges, energy blackouts, forced deportations, and mass killings. Historically, Ukraine came through the horrors of the 1930s Holodomor terror famine and the brunt of the fighting on the ferocious Eastern Front during WW2. Nevertheless, the Western Axes simultaneously realized the magnitude of Europe and the world's challenges and risks. With Western allies, the US and UK's sharing of intelligence, training, financial aid, and weapons has helped Ukraine to destroy much of the invading Russian army on the battlefield. Furthermore, Ukraine benefited from surprisingly high European unity and support. This unity was under threat in late 2021 as Germany pushed to complete the Nord Stream II pipeline with Russia. However, besides North Stream's failure, Russian aggression has persuaded formerly neutral Sweden and Finland to join the NATO alliance. Not only is NATO stronger than ever, but the EU finds itself with a greater purpose than ever since its inception. This unity comes despite Russian attempts to divide Europe via weaponized energy exports and subversive activities throughout the EU. Moscow was counting on a divided Europe, but the invasion of Ukraine has united the European continent. russia conflict emotion ukrainian

Furthermore, the paper delves into individuals and citizens as new actors in conflict being motivated to support a conflict party, primarily Ukraine, in cyberspace and various media sources. They became actors that opened up new approaches to analyzing future armed conflicts. Interestingly, in the Ukraine and

Russia conflict, in the beginning, civilians provided the view from the ground even before media associations could get there. They have done so in a highly effective way. Ukrainian people and their political and military leadership have used social media to inform people about the developments on the ground and relay their emotions and defiance. Thus, such visuals and perceived emotions have influenced identity politics, massive mobilization, militarism, and patriotism.

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