Media Participation and Narrative Warfare in Ukraine

Session Submission Type: Panel

Brief Description

The full-scale Russian invasion changed the Ukrainian mediascape forever, reversing some long-entrenched trends, reinforcing others and introducing completely new ones. Ukrainians impressed the world with their resilience and bravery as well as innovative approaches to communication. Nation branding, public diplomacy, psy-ops and strategic communication, and above all bold, bottom-up participation on social media became key elements of Ukraine’s success story. As the war drags on into its third year, there are also darker sides that increasingly come to the fore: the perils of military media management, the disconnection between the state-run telethon and daily experiences of ordinary Ukrainians, the attrition of the initial participatory zeal. What are the wins and losses of communication in Ukraine as the war continues with no end in sight, and how can the theoretical and methodological toolkits of contemporary media studies explain them? How do Ukraine’s institutions and ordinary citizens deal with information and narrative warfare? How can they break the stalemate that seems to reign not only on the field of battle but in the media field of the information war as well? This panel, gathering some of the most active contributors to research into Ukrainian media and communication, will attempt to answer these questions—and then formulate some new ones.

Sub Unit

• Cinema, Television, Electronic Media

Chair

• Roman Horbyk, U of Zurich (Switzerland)

Papers

• The Rise of the Informational State: Managing Meaning in Ukraine - Göran Bolin, Södertörn U (Sweden)

• Russia’s All Out War Changes Social Media Usage in Ukraine - Marta Dyczok, Western U (Canada)

• Cuteness in Service: Projective Identification as a Tool of the Narrative Warfare during the Russo-Ukrainian War - Kateryna Boyko, Uppsala U (Sweden)

• Too Tired to Meme: The Limits of Participatory War - Roman Horbyk, U of Zurich (Switzerland)

Discussant

• Katerina Sirinyok-Dolgaryova, U of Michigan / Zaporizhzhia National U (Ukraine)