Whose ‘Fakes’?: Disinformation Discourse and Motivated Reasoning in Wartime Russia

• In Event: Public Sociology Laboratory: Studying Russian Society in the Time of War

Abstract

References to disinformation have become a prominent aspect of modern political communication. While democratic governments attempt to combat disinformation spread by authoritarian regimes, autocrats have embraced the same rhetoric as a propaganda tool, raising the issue of the second-order effects of disinformation. However, research on this issue remains scarce. To fill this gap, I focus on the perceptions of disinformation in authoritarian Russia. Following the invasion of Ukraine, Putin's regime turned disinformation discourse into one of its primary propaganda strategies, while democratic governments adopted similar discourse to combat authoritarian propaganda. I argue that, in saturated media environments, raising awareness of disinformation can paradoxically aid autocrats by spurring citizens' motivated reasoning. Using the top-of-mind association method, a psychological technique that elicits spontaneous cognitive associations, I analyse data from the Panel Study of Russian Public Opinion and Attitudes (n = 3,500) to map how the concept of disinformation fits within a broader network of ideas and how associations vary across partisan subgroups. To gain further insight into how the concept is used by citizens, I complement this data with in-depth interviews focusing on perceptions of the war, conducted by the Public Sociology Laboratory across Russia. The results suggest that, while for some, the terms ‘disinformation’ and ‘fakes’ represent a factual state of reality, for many, they serve as rhetorical tools to discredit opposing viewpoints. These results contribute to the research on authoritarian propaganda in new media environments, while also highlighting policy implications for countering propaganda in both authoritarian and democratic settings.

Author

• Maxim Alyukov, U of Manchester (UK)