Persuasive leadership through framing, rhetoric, and history: An analysis of Zelensky’s speeches after the invasion of Ukraine

DOI: https://doi.org/10.5209/emp.99171
Keywords: Political communication, political leadership, framing, historical analogy, russo-ukrainian war

Abstract

Political communication is a key element at crucial moments in history to influence governments and public opinion in allied countries. The speeches of Ukraine’s president, Volodymyr Zelensky, have played an important role in his communicative strategy to try to maintain and increase the support of other states for his country in the war against Russia. This research analyzes the speeches he addressed to parliaments and citizens of different nations in the first two months after the beginning of the invasion of Ukraine on February 24, 2022. Based on a qualitative methodology that reconstructs the structure of the frames and identifies the rhetorical devices present in 27 complete speeches of the Ukrainian leader, the results reveal the predominance of four frames that associate the war with a clash of two antagonistic moral models that make any kind of equidistance impossible, and the existence of a threat to global security to which the international community cannot remain indifferent. To reinforce the persuasive effectiveness of his arguments and emphasize the need for the different measures he proposes, Zelensky uses historical analogies as a key symbolic mechanism in all the speeches analyzed, so that references to the legacy of memory facilitate the assimilation of his ideas by the public opinions of each society.

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Author Biographies

Juan Antonio Marín-Albaladejo, Saint Anthony Catholic University

PhD, is a professor of Journalism, Political Communication, and Public Opinion at Catholic University of Murcia (UCAM), where he also coordinates several postgraduate programs related to these subjects. His research has mainly focused on the mediation of political scandals and framing. He has carried out research stays and international mobility at the universities of Wroclaw (Poland), Leuven (Belgium), and Coimbra (Portugal). In 2017, he was awarded with the ACOP (Spanish Political Communication Association) Award for the Best PhD Dissertation in the field. Some of his most recent work has dealt with polarization and hostile discourse on social media, as part of a project of the Research Group in Communication, Politics, and Image of UCAM, of which he is a member

Enrique Arroyas Langa, Saint Anthony Catholic University

PhD, is a member of the Research Group in Communication, Politics, and Image of the Catholic University of Murcia (UCAM), a multidisciplinary group mainly interested in political communication, journalistic mediation, and image consulting. His research focuses on the processes of public opinion formation, especially on contemporary challenges to democracy. He researches the intersection between media and politics, particularly on the relationship between news media and political discourse. Much of his work uses rhetorical methods to study political discourses, including the role of social media in the rise of populist movements. He is currently a professor at UCAM in the degrees of Communication Sciences, and an opinion columnist in La Opinión de Murcia, where he has published his column “Dulce Jueves” since 2014.

Pedro Luis Pérez-Díaz, University of Murcia

PhD, is a professor of Journalism in the Department of Communication at the University of Murcia (UMU). He is a member of the Research Group in Social Communication, Culture and Technology of the same university and also a member of the Research Group in Communication, Politics, and Image of UCAM, institution from which he received the Extraordinary PhD Award in Social Sciences. His research focuses on civic and participatory journalism in digital contexts, with special attention to the analysis of public discourses shared by media, citizens, and political actors on social media in contemporary democratic societies. Author of several publications in impact journals, his contributions have been included by some of the leading publishers in the field. He has participated in competitive research projects related to the impact of social media in politics and accountability in the field of digital public administration. He has also carried out research stays at international institutions such as the Deliberative Democracy Lab at Stanford University and the University of Florida. He tweets from @pedroluis.

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Published
2025-06-17
How to Cite
Marín-Albaladejo J. A., Arroyas Langa E. . y Pérez-Díaz P. L. . (2025). Persuasive leadership through framing, rhetoric, and history: An analysis of Zelensky’s speeches after the invasion of Ukraine. Estudios sobre el Mensaje Periodístico, 31(2), 445-457. https://doi.org/10.5209/emp.99171
Issue
Vol. 31 No. 2 (2025): Monográfico: Transformación y manipulación de la opinión pública en la sociedad digital
Section
Articles

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