Cultural Production in Information Warfare

Session Submission Type: Roundtable

Brief Description

Throughout centuries, authoritarian rulers have correctly identified control over the information environment as instrumental not only to their ability to exert influence, but to their very survival. To be at its most effective, the sword must be complemented by the paintbrush, the camera, the conductor’s baton, and the writer’s quill. The Russian regime has long understood this, and, in its predictability, has prioritized bending national cultural production to its will since its first days in power. The Kremlin has spent years consolidating its control over the worlds of theater, art, cinema, music, games, and literature as a means of influencing audiences domestic and external. This roundtable investigates (1) how cultural production figures in Russia’s information war tactics, especially in the Russo-Ukrainian War, (2) how this cultural production is framed and interpreted, and (3) the role cultural production must play when teaching Russian digital literacy.

Sub Unit

• International Relations, Security Studies, Foreign Policy

Chair

• Marina Rojavin, Bryn Mawr College

Roundtable Members

• Olga Bukhina, Independent Scholar

• Andrii Kononenko, NovaMova School of Languages and Area Studies (Ukraine)

• Alexander Rojavin, Deft9 Solutions

• Yuri Shevchuk, Columbia U