Using Social Cognitive Theory to Explain Media Narratives of Propaganda: A Comparative Analysis of Nazi Germany and the 2022 Russia–Ukraine Conflict

Abstract

The media narratives that emerge from conflict reporting are often discredited or accused of carrying the propaganda of the warring front with which each narrative aligns. The digital and social media ecosystem accentuates manifold the far-reaching effects of these narratives on the personal, behavioural and environmental determinants of individuals and communities. The embedded propaganda within these narratives can be critically analysed using social cognitive theory (SCT) as the conceptual framework for two very different sets of conflict, one during the Second World War and the other in the present. The Nazi propaganda of antisemitism and the Russia–Ukraine conflict, though separated by almost eight decades, lay bare certain traits of narratives that can be critically understood using Bandura’s SCT. This article will examine Nazi propaganda mechanisms and the speeches of Hitler and Goebbels using triadic reciprocal determinism (TRD), which is one of the core tenets of Bandura’s SCT. Alongside, this article will also use TRD to examine news articles published in four Western media outlets such as Der Spiegel (in Germany), Le Monde (in France), The New York Times (NYT) (in the United States) and The Guardian (in the United Kingdom), and compare and contrast the emerging narratives with those that emerge from the most prominent Russian news agency, TASS. The article will examine selected news articles and agency news reports published over the past year since the conflict began in February 2022. While radio and print (the legacy media) and films were the tools of Nazi propaganda, media propaganda in the Russia–Ukraine conflict has also, with it, the unbounded digital media and the social media ecosystem. Using SCT, this article evaluates how media narratives of conflict (both past and present) serve as a learning model for consumers of a particular narrative, enabling them to undergo psychosocial mechanisms through which the media narrative influences their behaviour, thoughts and actions.