Review  of the Master Thesis  “A comparative analysis of news framing effects:  news coverage of MH-17 airplane crash”   by Aglaia Rakitianskaia,  Global Communication and International Journalism,  School of Journalism and Mass Communications, St.Petersburg State University   The provided master thesis has very relevant topicality. The idea of the information war as well as the hybrid war based on the exchange of the tendentious coverage from both side is more and more used to describe the information asymmetry on the coverage of the conflict between Russia, international community and the Ukraine, especially the episode with the crash of the MH-17. From this point of view, frame analysis of the comparative media coverage of this issue could be considered very helpful. First part of the thesis is the theoretic part where the author tends to link the theory of frames with the particular coverage of the MH-17 story and to build up the methodology. The richness of the theoretical basis aggregated by the author for such research merits is to be separately mentioned.  The first theoretical part where the author uses a lot of theories and does a comprehensive review of the frame theories from perspectives of different sciences (philology, media studies, cultural studies and general social sciences), seems to be quite disconnected from the part 3, where the author just stands what kind of frame analysis method she will use. In this methodological part, the methodology is not based on the theories which were used previously but comes from the separate review of methods. The author’s methodology is based on the deductive method and approach of framing of news items according to Norris’s classification.  The practical part of the thesis contains the frame analysis of the collections of media texts from BBC News and Russia Today selected around the key dates of the timeline within which the issue developed. First, this timeline is reconstructed, and then the qualitative analysis of frames takes place. In overall, the thesis can be treated as a complete research project but it has several significant flaws that we see. 1.	First mistake is non-clarity of the main tasks. Author for instance says that she would like to clarify and investigate frames of the modern media content. On the other hand, she speaks about intention to analyze articles on a particular issue. Thus, to our viewpoint, the author is confusing between media in general and particular issues in print media. Moreover, in the introduction the choice of the media outlets is not sufficiently explained.  2.	The research question as well as the research hypotheses are formulated in the way that makes the text sometimes quite descriptive. Research questions appear in the middle of the text and are weakly linked with the conducted frame analysis. The proposed classification of frames is also questionable; we’re not sure that the conflict could not be a tragedy at the same time, or vice versa. 3.	We do not see any usefulness in the paragraph 2. Paragraph 2.1. is just the reminder about how events with MH-17 was gone. We could say the same about paragraph 2.2 where the author tries to do a briefly overview of BBC News and RT channels. It’s general information, which has no scientific point.  4.	When the author tries to construct the theoretical object of the research it could be good to add not only theories about media frames but also about the international broadcasting and the role of the content in the international broadcasting vs. soft power. But author doesn’t attract any literature and theoretical basis on this issue.   We consider that, in general, the author responds on the majority of research questions and has done frame analysis on the first, a bit superficial level. It could be called ‘primary frame analysis’. Despite this, the author has proved theoretical knowledge and general knowledge of qualitative research methods. The author could be granted the Master Diploma in the field of global communication and international journalism. The level of the proposed graduation mark is mid-level.  24/05/2016  Ilya Kiriya Professor of the department of media Faculty of Communication, media and design National Research University Higher School of Economics