From Stability to Escalation: Temporal Dynamics of Discursive Risk in NATO’s Facebook Communication on the Ukraine–Russia War

This article examines how NATO adapted its public communication during the 2022–2025 Ukraine–Russia war by analysing over 1400 Facebook posts through an integrated interpretive–computational approach. While existing research mainly focuses on media narratives or public reactions, institutional emotional signalling remains underexplored. To address this gap, the study combines sentiment analysis, transformer-based emotion detection, dictionary-based conflict scoring, and a composite Daily Risk Index (DRI) capturing deviations in agenda saturation, tonal volatility, negativity, and threat-related emotions. The findings show that NATO’s digital communication is generally stable but punctuated by short, high-intensity phases triggered by major geopolitical events. Fear emerges as the dominant emotional cue, signalling gravity without escalating hostility, while anger appears selectively in references to severe violations or war crimes. Communication follows a recurring escalation pattern—gradual volatility increase, brief peak intensity, and rapid normalisation. The study advances crisis communication theory, contributes to digital securitization research, and offers a replicable framework for analysing discursive risk.