| Abstract [eng] |
Syria continues to be one of the most complex and deadliest conflicts of the 21st century. The power dynamic in the country changed by the end of 2024, when the Sunni Islamist militant group Hay’at Tahrir al-Sham, with its leader, Ahmed al-Sharaa overthrew the decades-long Bashar al-Assad regime. The ‘surprise offensive’ attracted attention from international actors and the media, whose coverage gradually shifted from narratives about the group’s extremist past towards discourses of legitimacy that positioned the group and its leader as the main power in Syria. The legitimacy of transitional governments is one of the most controversial and debated topics. This raises continuous discussions in international arena, as the validity can significantly influence diplomatic recognition and aid. The research focuses on the legitimacy crisis in Syria’s transitional governance due to the involvement of the controversial group Hay’at Tahrir al-Sham. It aims to analyse how the media create and frame narratives across different phases of Syria’s transitional governance. To achieve this, the research establishes four objectives: 1. To investigate how the political transition emerges from conflict dynamics and to define the main stages of the Syrian transition; 2. To review theories of political transition, legitimacy, framing, and agenda-setting in the context of the legitimacy crisis; 3. To identify leading narrative elements toward Syrian transitional governance, as portrayed in selected media outlets, using the Narrative Policy Framework; 4. To compare and evaluate whether shifts in media narratives correspond with changes in political developments reflected by the international community. The theoretical part is grounded in normative and discursive legitimacy, framing, and agenda-setting theories, employing a qualitative research design. The empirical part applies the Narrative Policy Framework, which allows for the systematic content analysis of narrative elements such as setting, plot, characters, and the moral of the story. News reports from two outlets, BBC News and Al Jazeera, are coded using Maxqda software. Later, the narrative circulation typology allows to investigate whether international political discourse corresponds to media narratives on the legitimacy of Syria’s new governance. The findings suggest that political transition unfolds in four stages: Deadlock, Violent trigger, Initial transition, and Post-Settlement Transition. The analysis concludes that the primary attempts to frame legitimacy in Syria emerged even before the official establishment of the new government, marked by the signing of a new constitutional declaration. Media narratives gradually shifted from delegitimizing Assad and associating HTS with terrorism in Deadlock to attempts to legitimize the group in later stages. The analysis of other stages revealed that BBC News frames the legitimacy of new Syrian authorities as a conditional and reversible process, whereas Al Jazeera frames legitimacy as a process, progressing together with governance developments. Overall, the findings demonstrate close alignment between media narratives and international political discourse, highlighting the strong connection between media discourse and political strategies. |
