Measuring Fabulation in Russo-Ukrainian War Online Narratives: Conceptualization and Operationalization

The paper aims to investigate a series of narratives concerning the Russo-Ukrainian war by the perspective of Lyotard and Turner (1979; 1982) – who emphasize the narrator/performer as an integral part of the narratives – and according to the approach of Benjamin (1936) – who recognizes the aura of the narrator as a key factor in audience engagement. The goals are twofold: first, to proceed with the definition and operationalization of the concept of fabulation (cf. Jedlowski, 2022), testing it as a new detection tool (Früh 2007; Neuendorf, 2002) in order to examine a phenomenon increasingly evident from the observation of online war narratives; second, to extract valuable data for subsequent investigations. The research focuses on analyzing a series of posts published on Telegram by several Italian channels during March-April 2022 regarding the destruction of the hospital and theatre in Mariupol. To test the tool and manage the subjectivity of interpretations (Faggiano, 2022), a content analysis was carried out through the collaborative efforts of three coders. The objective is to assess the extent to which narratives – particularly war narratives spread on social media by professional, institutional, and non-expert storytellers – may evoke instances of engagement and affection, surpassing the empirical objectivity of the conveyed information. Consequently, this could improve our understanding of the mechanisms through which war narratives can influence the emotional impact on the reader/user and, thus, contribute to the formation of public opinion.