“Two Flags - One Goal”? Exploring X/Twitter Responses to the Unprecedented Influx of Ukrainian War Refugees into Poland

Social media serves as a platform for communication during extraordinary situations such as armed conflicts and natural disasters. The presented study explores communication about war refugees during the first year of Russia's full-scale aggression against Ukraine (2022), a period when a wave of refugees arrived in Poland from Ukraine. The research focused on posts published on the X/Twitter platform, employing both qualitative and quantitative analyses of posts selected based on specific keywords.The dataset included posts published between February 22, 2022 (12:00 a.m. CET) and December 31, 2022 (11:59 p.m. CET), totaling 56,044 tweets, retweets, and replies. The analysis employed stance detection and frame analysis methods. Stance detection, also known as opinion analysis, was used to identify how users expressed opinions, attitudes, and emotions regarding migrants. Posts were categorized as negative, neutral, or positive, with values assigned on a scale of 0–1. Posts were grouped based on identification criteria, and the total number of reposts and conversion rates (total reposts/total posts) were calculated for each group. Frame analysis, rooted in cognitive psychology, was originally designed to examine how social reality is interpreted by emphasizing certain aspects over others. The study identified general and issue-specific frames in the posts. General frames included: conflict, human interest, economy, morality, and responsibility. Issue-specific frames included: migration flows, migrant features, helping Ukrainians, Second World War, and international relations. The analysis revealed that negative posts dominated the dataset, with the average stance across 200 posts at 0.31. Negative posts had the lowest conversion rates, despite being the most numerous. Positive posts, while least frequent, had the highest conversion rates. Among general frames, posts with a negative stance were predominant, resulting in an average stance below 0.2. An exception was the human interest frame (average stance = 0.85), characterized by empathetic posts. In issue-specific frames, most negative posts appeared in the "helping Ukrainians" frame (average stance = 0.18). The "migration flows," "migrant features," and "Second World War" frames exhibited slightly less negativity (average stance = 0.27–0.35). A contrasting situation was observed in the "international relations" frame, which was characterized by a neutral stance toward Ukrainians (average stance = 0.57). Among general frames, the human interest frame had the highest conversion rate, attributed to the humanitarian tone during the early months of the war. Posts from the morality frame, which included ethical assessments of Ukrainians' presence in Poland, had slightly lower conversion rates. Frames related to conflict and responsibility followed, often focusing on the Polish government's response to the refugee crisis and potential Polish-Ukrainian or internal conflicts. The economic frame had the lowest conversion rate, attracting little attention with few posts and reposts. Despite the conflict frame having the highest total number of reposts, its conversion rate was relatively low. Among issue-specific frames, the "international relations" frame had the highest conversion rate, followed by the "migrant features" frame. These high conversion rates can be attributed to the emotions surrounding the war's outbreak and the absorption of a large number of refugees.