PUBLIC COMMUNICATION DURING UKRAINE’S INVASION AND ITS EFFECT ON PUBLICS

: Our paper examines the manner in which public opinion is affected by public communication in a very specific situation. The conflict in Ukraine has been on everyone’s mind for the last three months not only due to its unreasonableness but also due to the Ukrainians mastery of communicating to the public, be it national or international. As the conflict has grown stronger in its intensity so has the public communication on the Ukrainian side which took any given chance to address the international political scene through President Volodymyr Zelenski’s speeches in front of numerous Parliaments. While scrutinising the Ukrainian manner of communicating information and asking for humanitarian, financial and military aid, we will also inspect the manner in which the Russian side communicates. We will look into the effect that these addresses have had on the public opinion. The theoretical background of the paper includes the views on public opinion of Gabriel Tarde, Pierre Zémor’s definition of public communication as well as Jürgen Habermas’ communicative theory. These theories will assist us in our research to demonstrate which side communicates the better and which has the ability to use cultural references that support their message. Our paper studies an ongoing military conflict, i.e. the data that we have included so far could be interpreted differently later.