The “TV Disaster Marathon” Genre. The War in Ukraine and the Battle of Televisions

Abstract

The article examines television marathons in the coverage of extraordinary events, focusing on the war in Ukraine. According to Daniel Dayan and Elihu Katz, media events are „high festivals of mass communication“, and television marathons stand out as a genre of media communication. In recent years, the so-called conflict-oriented media events that have their own specifics. Televisions are increasingly broadcasting emergency broadcasts during disasters, terrorist threats or war. A comparative analysis is made of the media coverage of the war in Ukraine on its first day between the three national televisions – BNT, BTV and Nova TV. The conclusion is that in such events that disrupt the daily routine, the media enter into a sharp competition for viewers, use a wide range of genre and rhetorical techniques to attract attention, but the meaning of what is happening is set by the same experts with the same or similar arguments.