MEASURING THE INVOLVEMENT OF THE MEDIA SYSTEM AS AN OBJECTIVE FACTOR IN ARMED CONFLICTS

Abstract

The article is devoted to development of key performance indicators (KPI) measuring the media system’s influence on the course of armed conflicts in 2024–2026. Based on the analysis of 336 media events from three cases (Russia–Ukraine, Palestine–Israel, USA–Iran), a five-category KPI model is proposed: Temporal, Spatial, Cognitive, Institutional, Algorithmic. The central hypothesis posits that the media system is an objective (structural) actor in conflict, whose influence is determined not by the intentions of participants but by the structural characteristics of the system. The results demonstrate that the media system influences the course of events contrary to the intentions of all parties: war correspondents undermine their own command, algorithms amplify content regardless of its affiliation, and journalists become targets due to the objective significance of media infrastructure. Empirical data and reproducible methodology are available in the open GitHub repository (MediaCod22/warandmedia) in accordance with open science principles. The proposed KPI framework opens opportunities for systematic accounting of the media factor in military and humanitarian planning.