From a Symbolic Line to the State Border: Discourse of Ukrainian-Russian Border in Regional Media

Abstract

The article investigates the changes of the concept of "state border" in the discursive field of regional media. The publications about the Russian-Ukrainian border, which represented in the local newspaper "Evening Kharkov" ("Vecherniy Kharkiv") in the first two decades of independence of Ukraine (1991-2012), are analyzed. In those publications border occurs first, as one of the institutions, and secondly – as a phenomenon of the unity of culture and sociality. The author also analyzed which lines of discourse concerning the Ukrainian-Russian border are the most common; it is shown that there is a simultaneous existence and use of the concept of "border" – as hard-line, which should "close" the border for illegal immigrants and criminals, and certain "bridge" which promotes collaboration and friendship border regions of Ukraine and Russia.