Disengaging News Framing in Ukrainian Press Ukrainian Newspapers against the backdrop of Polish Press

Similar to Poland, Ukraine started itsmedia reform in early 90-s. However, different from Poland, media in Ukraine still did not become a true mediator between the authorities, the politicians and the society. This paper is a part of a bigger study 1 which purpose was to compare news framing in Polish and Ukrainian press in 2003 from the perspective of its possible impact on people’s engagement in public life. I traced the use of two news frames having a distinguished positive or negative impact on involvement, the attribution of responsibility and the powerlessness frame, in Ukrainian and Polish quality newspapers [Den’ and Dzerkalo Tyznia, Gazeta Wyborcza, Rzeczpospolita]. The paper concentrates on the Ukrainian media and analyses framing in the Ukrainian news. The results of the study presented here show that Polish newspapers more often enable citizens to participate in political decisions by critically scrutinizing the performance of their elected representatives in office. Different from them, Ukrainian news serve rather for concealment of the responsible policy-makers from public scrutiny, blurring the picture of political life and voicing public frustration with problems, which only contributes to the reproduction of people’s helplessness and passivity in public life.