Facebook page of Andrzej Duda and Image of Poland during Full-Scale Invasionof the Russian Troops into Ukraine

Abstract

The aim of the article is to study the image of the President and the national brand of the Republic of Poland during the full-scale invasion of Russian troops into Ukraine through the prism of the informational content of Andrej Duda’s page on Facebook. Methodology of the research lies in conducting content-analysis of Andrej Duda’s Facebook page concerning the information related to the Russian-Ukrainian war and correlating it with the image of Andrzej Duda as well as with the overall image of Poland on the international arena before and during the full-scale Russian-Ukrainian war. The scientific novelty lies in conducting the analysis of posts on Andrzej Duda’s official Facebook page to study whether they contain information on Ukraine and Western partners of the anti-Russian coalition as well as correlating them with the image of Andrzej Duda and the overall image of Poland on the international arena before and after the full-scale invasion of the Russian troops into Ukraine. The article studies as the team of President of Poland Andrzej Duda extensively used Facebook social network to achieve the set political and electoral goals, focusing both on the internal and external audience. Conclusions. Content analysis of President of Poland Andrzej Duda’s Facebook page has shown that during full-scale invasion of the Russian troops into Ukraine the Presidents’ team continued to actively exploit this resource as an important channel for internal political communication as well as for establishing relations with foreign partners. The study observes a priority shift from cohesion of internal traditionalist catholic electorate to shaping an international anti-Russian coalition. Looking at short-term consequences of this priority shift, it may be considered negative for “Law and Justice” as Andrej Duda’s party has lost at the Parliamentary elections in autumn 2023. However, when analyzing the situation from the perspective of Polish state interests, protection of democracy, European security and sustainability of Western civilization, Andrzej Duda achieved positive results in his international activities.