- Ukraine
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This chapter examines the state of computational propaganda in Ukraine, focusing on two major dimensions: Ukraine’s response to the challenges of external information attacks, and the use of computational propaganda in internal political... more
This chapter examines the state of computational propaganda in Ukraine, focusing on two major dimensions: Ukraine’s response to the challenges of external information attacks, and the use of computational propaganda in internal political communication. Based on interviews with Ukrainian media experts, academics, industry insiders, and bot developers, the chapter explores the scale of the issue and identifies the most common tactics, instruments, and approaches for the deployment of political bots online. The cases described illustrate the misconceptions about fake accounts, paid online commentators, and automated scripts, as well as the threats of malicious online activities. First, we explain how bots operate in the internal political and media environment of the country and provide examples of typical campaigns. Second, we analyze the case of the MH17 tragedy as an illustrative example of Russia’s purposeful disinformation campaign against Ukraine, which has a distinctive social media component. Finally, responses to computational propaganda are scrutinized, including alleged governmental attacks on Ukrainian journalists, which reveal that civil society and grassroots movements have great potential to stand up to the perils of computational propaganda.
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‘Please do not go beyond the barricades! They are shooting our guys there!’ — this alarming warning had been repeatedly voiced from the stage on Maidan Nezalezhnosti (Independence Square), a central site of protests in Kyiv, on the... more
‘Please do not go beyond the barricades! They are shooting our guys there!’ — this alarming warning had been repeatedly voiced from the stage on Maidan Nezalezhnosti (Independence Square), a central site of protests in Kyiv, on the morning of 20 February 2014. The message — full of despair, confusion and fear — reached far beyond the site of the protests, as hundreds of thousands of people were watching live broadcast of a severe stand-off between protestors and riot police in the very heart of the Ukrainian capital.
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This article focuses on the transformation of Soviet Cold War propaganda into the contemporary Russian information operations, bringing together two distinct periods characterised with the rise of new and sophisticated techniques. By... more
This article focuses on the transformation of Soviet Cold War propaganda into the contemporary Russian information operations, bringing together two distinct periods characterised with the rise of new and sophisticated techniques. By comparing propaganda instructions in KGB manuals and the practices of the propagandists behind the 2014–2020 Secondary Infektion campaign, we find out what of the “analogue” Cold War propaganda remains in the present-day computational propaganda and how exactly Soviet propaganda techniques evolved into the new mediascape. This highlights both strong continuities of methods and techniques and certain discontinuities. Our analysis also contributes to the understanding of the very concept of propaganda, singling out such aspects as covertness, negativity, and inauthenticity as especially ingrained features of the Russian style of propaganda that are also regrettably often overlooked in generic definitions.
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The conflict between Russia and Ukraine that unfolded in the Donbas region of Ukraine has caused significant loss of life and triggered a humanitarian crisis. This chapter examines how communities in Donbas have been navigating different... more
The conflict between Russia and Ukraine that unfolded in the Donbas region of Ukraine has caused significant loss of life and triggered a humanitarian crisis. This chapter examines how communities in Donbas have been navigating different media, accessing news sources amidst the conflict and making sense of the diverse and often contradictory information that is presented to them through the media. A particular focus for the analysis is placed on local media and their use by audiences in Donbas against a backdrop of deteriorating trust in national media. The chapter argues that while this context has created opportunities for local media, they have largely failed to provide a credible alternative to the mainstream national media. Instead, local groups and community pages on social media have performed some of the functions of local media by meeting the information needs of conflict-affected communities.
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The paper explores the standards of media coverage of elections in Ukraine, focusing primarily on the news TV programs. While providing a brief overview of the practices of electoral coverage by Ukrainian media throughout last decade, the... more
The paper explores the standards of media coverage of elections in Ukraine, focusing primarily on the news TV programs. While providing a brief overview of the practices of electoral coverage by Ukrainian media throughout last decade, the paper specifically addresses the most recent presidential election campaign of 2009-2010 as a case study. The paper presents the results of news monitoring, outlining major trends in media coverage of election campaigns in Ukraine. The problem of paid-for coverage and its implications for the development of media system in Ukraine are discussed.
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War reporting has mostly been analyzed as a struggle between political and military control over information and journalistic professionalism. An analysis of reporting in mainstream media from the conflict in eastern Ukraine in 2014 shows... more
War reporting has mostly been analyzed as a struggle between political and military control over information and journalistic professionalism. An analysis of reporting in mainstream media from the conflict in eastern Ukraine in 2014 shows that many other aspects must also be considered. In a comparative study, mainstream media coverage in four countries, Ukraine, Russia, Poland, and Sweden, was analyzed and interviews were held with journalists in the media included in the content analysis. Findings revealed significant variations in the framing of the conflict, portrayal of actors involved, and word choice across national settings. Interviews with journalists also high lighted crucial differences in approaches and perceptions. Results show that the specific journalistic culture in each country, self-censorship, and the degree of activist approach among journalists simi larly play an important role in war reporting. Researchers from all four countries participated in the project.
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As the social media increasingly proliferate and shape media consumption in the present-day world, journalists growingly turn to them in search of direct access to their audiences. Under conditions of restricted media freedom, such access... more
As the social media increasingly proliferate and shape media consumption in the present-day world, journalists growingly turn to them in search of direct access to their audiences. Under conditions of restricted media freedom, such access suggests a great asset both to journalists who can engage into an open discussion with a wider public and to the very public. In Ukraine, both trends had been vivid in recent years preceding the Euromaidan: on the one hand, media freedom had been deteriorating, but on the other hand, journalists had been utilizing social media more actively. Th e article examines how Ukrainian journalists communicated with their audiences via Facebook. In particular, it analyzes patterns of interaction during the 2012 parliamentary election campaign. Th e results of the study show a substantial level of confusion among Ukrainian journalists regarding the role of public debate on Facebook in 2012–2013. While journalists tended to dismiss users’ comments as mostly ir...
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As the social media increasingly proliferate and shape media consumption in the present-day world, journalists growingly turn to them in search of direct access to their audiences. Under conditions of restricted media freedom, such access... more
As the social media increasingly proliferate and shape media consumption in the present-day world, journalists growingly turn to them in search of direct access to their audiences. Under conditions of restricted media freedom, such access suggests a great asset both to journalists who can engage into an open discussion with a wider public and to the very public. In Ukraine, both trends had been vivid in recent years preceding the Euromaidan: on the one hand, media freedom had been deteriorating, but on the other hand, journalists had been utilizing social media more actively. The article examines how Ukrainian journalists communicated with their audiences via Facebook. In particular, it analyzes patterns of interaction during the 2012 parliamentary election campaign. The results of the study show a substantial level of confusion among Ukrainian journalists regarding the role of public debate on Facebook in 2012–2013. While journalists tended to dismiss users’ comments as mostly irre...
Book review of Natalya Ryabinska. Ukraine’s Post-Communist Mass Media: Between Capture and Commercialization. Foreword by Marta Dyczok, ibidem-Verlag, 2017. Soviet and Post-Soviet Politics and Society 162, edited by Andreas Umland. 186... more
Book review of Natalya Ryabinska. Ukraine’s Post-Communist Mass Media: Between Capture and Commercialization. Foreword by Marta Dyczok, ibidem-Verlag, 2017. Soviet and Post-Soviet Politics and Society 162, edited by Andreas Umland. 186 pp. Tables. Bibliography. Name Index. Subject Index. €29.90, paper.
The crisis in Ukraine was one of the dominant topics in international news coverage of 2014 and the following years. Representing a conflict along the lines of an East-Western confrontation unprecedented since the end of the Cold War, the... more
The crisis in Ukraine was one of the dominant topics in international news coverage of 2014 and the following years. Representing a conflict along the lines of an East-Western confrontation unprecedented since the end of the Cold War, the news reporting in different European countries with different historical backgrounds is an essential research topic. This article presents findings of a content analysis examining coverage of the conflict in the first half of 2014 in newspapers from a diverse set of 13 countries: Albania, Czech Republic, Germany, Latvia, the Netherlands, Poland, Portugal, Romania, Serbia, Switzerland and the United Kingdom, as well as Ukraine and Russia. Drawing on prior literature on news values, key events, and news cycles in foreign coverage, this study maps the evolution of the conflict in the course of four key events and identifies specific characteristics of the coverage in different newspapers. The results show that attention for the conflict varies conside...
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This chapter examines the state of computational propaganda in Ukraine, focusing on two major dimensions: Ukraine’s response to the challenges of external information attacks, and the use of computational propaganda in internal political... more
This chapter examines the state of computational propaganda in Ukraine, focusing on two major dimensions: Ukraine’s response to the challenges of external information attacks, and the use of computational propaganda in internal political communication. Based on interviews with Ukrainian media experts, academics, industry insiders, and bot developers, the chapter explores the scale of the issue and identifies the most common tactics, instruments, and approaches for the deployment of political bots online. The cases described illustrate the misconceptions about fake accounts, paid online commentators, and automated scripts, as well as the threats of malicious online activities. First, we explain how bots operate in the internal political and media environment of the country and provide examples of typical campaigns. Second, we analyze the case of the MH17 tragedy as an illustrative example of Russia’s purposeful disinformation campaign against Ukraine, which has a distinctive social m...
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A crucial benchmark in Ukraine's recent history, the Euromaidan protests triggered many transformations across Ukrainian society. Ukrainian journalism has affected and has been affected by these changes and their challenges. Journalists'... more
A crucial benchmark in Ukraine's recent history, the Euromaidan protests triggered many transformations across Ukrainian society. Ukrainian journalism has affected and has been affected by these changes and their challenges. Journalists' activism emerged as one of the major features of Ukraine's post-Euromaidan media landscape but remains understudied. Informed by the concepts of " journalism culture " and " journalism professionalism, " this article explores journalists' perceptions about their activism, the boundaries of their professionalism and their experiences confronting the activism versus professionalism dilemma. It identifies journalists' competing approaches to the new challenges and their complicated context and discusses these approaches' implications for the Ukrainian media and journalism.