Combining Qualitative and Digital Methods for Exploratory Framing Analyses: The Case of Alternative Video Coverage of the Syrian War on YouTube

Abstract

It is claimed that the Syrian War is the most socially mediated war in history thus far. This paper explores how the Syrian War is framed and discussed in YouTube, which has become a central stage for reporting and discussing the conflict in a global-transnational setting. The case study focuses on the coverage of the alleged chemical attacks in Khan Sheikhoun on April 2017 in non-mainstream media content published on the platform. The analysis has two purposes: to explore how the conflict is framed by alternative sources and to examine how viewers react to this content. The data yielded with this mixed methods design eventually helps with mapping the discourse in the web.