"This volume aims to deepen understanding of the dynamic intersections of war and media in the rapidly transforming media ecology and the reordered geopolitical context. The volume examines the ways in which the digital media and communication environment is involved in and shape the war in Ukraine.
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The chapters in the volume analyse expanding mesh of media-from mainstream broadcasting and press to social media platforms, and the latest digital technologies and addresses four key themes: media infrastructures and the interplay between platforms, technologies, institutions and civic actors; open-source intelligence contributing to (dis)information about the war; the everyday life of war performed and documented on social media; and different interplays between the local and the global in the news coverage of the war." (Publisher description)
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"This report covers key trends and developments in terrorist and violent extremist (TVE) use of the internet over 2022. It aims to highlight the principal shifts in TVE behaviour and tactics online, and to inform more comprehensive, cross-industry responses to countering TVE exploitation of the inte
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rnet. TVE entities have expanded their exploitation of infrastructure providers through the ongoing creation and maintenance of terrorist and violent extremist operated websites (TOWs); despite the increasing prominence of TOWs in the online ecosystem, these service providers are frequently left out of the discussion of countering TVE exploitation of the internet. We have highlighted in this report some of our successes of 2022, which include domain level disruption of TVE entities online as well as our broader support for the entire tech ecosystem." (Introduction, page 4)
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"We sought to better understand Russia's disinformation on social media and generate recommendations to better meet and counter this evolving threat. We relied on an analysis of Russian military literature, investigative efforts, official reports, academic and policy literature, media reporting, and
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expert interviews. We also conducted a case study in Ukraine, interviewing a variety of key experts in the Ukrainian government and in the nongovernmental sector who are involved in confronting Russian information warfare." (Summary)
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"During the monitoring period (February 24 – April 24) the following tendencies have been identified: Out of the 160 false information and manipulative content, mainly disseminated in Russian and Georgian sources, the largest share (49.4%) was directed against Ukraine, followed by disinformation a
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gainst the West (28.1%). Part of the false and manipulative content was aimed at justifying Russia’s actions (16.3%). In order to evade Russia’s responsibility for human casualties, the Kremlin’s propaganda has resorted to the tactic of “whataboutism” – in response to accusations, the Russian side has been arguing that the Ukrainian side was the one killing the civilian population and that the population was endangered not by Russian troops but by the actions of the Azov Battalion and other so-called ‘Nazi groups.’ The denial of Russian responsibility for the military intervention in Ukraine was also bolstered by deliberate disinformation, reinforcing the idea that Ukraine was fabricating information about the victims (Mariupol blogger story, Bucha Massacre). Visual manipulations, including those related to the pandemic, were often used for this purpose [...]" (Key findings)
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"Over the past decade, Vladimir Putin’s Russia has employed unorthodox foreign policy tools with increasing frequency, intensity, and success. Perhaps the most effective of these tactics has been the use of information warfare designed to affect decision-making in countries Russia considers to be
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its adversaries. In the target countries, these measures aim to destabilize civil society, erode trust in democratic institutions, and foster uncertainty among allies. If the United States and Europe hope to defend their economies, institutions, and identities, an immediate and effective policy response is required. To date, however, the United States and many of its European partners have struggled to develop policies that combat and counter Russian information warfare. The articles gathered here examine the tools that Russia has used against Ukraine, Poland, the United States, and the European Union, as well as the strategies that these countries have employed to combat Russian information warfare. The joint article by the four authors concisely summarizes the findings and proposes policy options by means of which the democratic countries of the West can address the challenges information warfare poses. The final article looks at Russia, examining controversies around the political role of the aggregator Yandex.news in prioritizing media news." (Introduction, page 2)
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"In this book, Philip Seib, one of the world's leading experts on media and war, offers a probing analysis of the role of information in warfare from the Second World War to the present day and beyond. He focuses on some of the thorniest issues on the contemporary agenda: When untruthful and inflamm
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atory information poisons a nation's political processes and weakens its social fabric, what kind of response is appropriate? How can media literacy help citizens defend themselves against information warfare? Should militaries place greater emphasis on crippling their adversaries with information rather than kinetic force? Well-written and wide-ranging, Information at War suggests answers to key questions with which governments, journalists, and the public must grapple during the years ahead." (Back cover)
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"This book examines the shape, sources and dangers of information warfare (IW) as it pertains to military, diplomatic and civilian stakeholders. Cyber warfare and information warfare are different beasts. Both concern information, but where the former does so exclusively in its digitized and operati
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onalized form, the latter does so in a much broader sense: with IW, information itself is the weapon. The present work aims to help scholars, analysts and policymakers understand IW within the context of cyber conflict. Specifically, the chapters in the volume address the shape of influence campaigns waged across digital infrastructure and in the psychology of democratic populations in recent years by belligerent state actors, from the Russian Federation to the Islamic Republic of Iran. In marshalling evidence on the shape and evolution of IW as a broad-scoped phenomenon aimed at societies writ large, the authors in this book present timely empirical investigations into the global landscape of influence operations, legal and strategic analyses of their role in international politics, and insightful examinations of the potential for democratic process to overcome pervasive foreign manipulation." (Publisher description)
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"The rapid escalation in the long-running conflict between Azerbaijan and Armenia which took place in late September 2020 has been shadowed by a battle across social media for control of the international narrative about the conflict. On Twitter, large numbers of accounts supporting both sides have
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been wading in on politicised hashtags linked to the conflict. Our findings indicate large-scale coordinated activity. While much of this behaviour is likely to be authentic, our analysis has also found a significant amount of suspicious and potentially inauthentic behaviour. The goal of this research piece is to observe and document some of the early dynamics of the information battle playing out in parallel to the conflict on the ground and create a basis for further, more comprehensive research. This report is in no way intended to undermine the legitimacy of authentic social media conversations and debate taking place on all sides of the conflict." (Aspi.org.au)
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"This study examines disinformation and propaganda in war in the age of information particularly through social media. It analyzes Twitter's posts of the Afghan government and the Taliban, from January to March 2018. For understanding disinformation, 952 tweets of both parties were crosschecked with
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four national media outlets and a civilian protection advocacy group; and to recognize how the belligerents tried to present and propagate, their contents were analyzed to identify terms that dominate their outbound information. The study found discrepancy in information disseminated by the warring parties and mainstream media. Terrorism and Jihad were dominant frames of government and the Taliban, respectively. The findings could contribute to a greater body of literature regarding propaganda in operationalization of social media in the conflict zone." (Abstract)
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"Die technischen Möglichkeiten der Cyberwelt haben gänzlich neue Potenziale zur Beeinflussung von politischen Präferenzen in anderen Staaten eröffnet. Die Meinungsbildung in offenen Gesellschaften wird zunehmend durch subversive Maßnahmen autoritärer Regime im Internet beeinflusst, wodurch der
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öffentliche Raum Internet stark eingeschränkt wird. In dieser Studie wird untersucht, wie die Resilienz von offenen Gesellschaften gegen Subversion aus dem Cyberraum gestärkt werden kann, ohne dabei die eigenen Grundsätze preiszugeben. Zunächst wird ein Überblick zu den Diskursen über Cyberbedrohungen gegeben, um sich dann auf die Frage nach der gesellschaftlichen Resilienz zu konzentrieren." (Zusammenfassung)
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"Theorising Media and Conflict is the result of a joint and interdisciplinary effort to set the theoretical and empirical agenda in theorising upon the complex relationship between media and conflict. By considering the theorisation work accomplished by the ‘Anthropology of Media’ series forerun
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ner Theorising Media and Practice (edited by Bräuchler and Postill), it takes the notion of media (as) practice to new terrain. It thus counters studies that display Western biases, normative assumptions and unsubstantiated claims about ‘media effects’ in conflict situations. Through ground-up theorising, careful contextualisation, comparative perspectives, ethnographic and other qualitative methods, it provides evidence for the co-constitutiveness of media and conflict, and contributes to the consolidation of media and conflict as a distinct area of scholarship. While the contributions to this book deal with different kinds of media and conflict situations in distinct world regions and examine various aspects of media use, they all engage with media and conflict dynamics from a participant’s perspective as well as from an analytical perspective. Such an approach allows for the theorisation of media and conflict beyond a particular type of media, conflict or region." (Preface, page ix-x)
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"Auf der ganzen Welt nutzen unterschiedlichste Akteure die Wirkungsmechanismen der digitalen Medien aus, um durch gezielte Desinformationskampagnen die öffentliche Meinung zu beeinflussen. Dies, so lautet die zentrale These von Peter Pomerantsev, bedrohe Demokratien und Demokratisierungsprozesse. W
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o früher Informationen durch die Zensur kontrolliert wurden, gebe es heute ein Überangebot an Informationen, deren Wahrheitsgehalt immer schwerer feststellbar ist. Dadurch ginge das Vertrauen in eine gemeinsam gelebte und objektiv überprüfbare Wirklichkeit als Voraussetzung öffentlicher Meinungs- und Willensbildung zunehmend verloren. Autokratische Regime hätten es so leichter, Narrative zu verbreiten, die das Ziel haben, politische Gegner zu schwächen, missliebige Journalistinnen und Journalisten zu diskreditieren oder zivilgesellschaftliche Organisationen zu delegitimieren. Kriege wie der in der Ostukraine würden heutzutage nicht durch Schusswaffen, sondern durch Troll-Armeen, Cybermilizen und Facebook-Posts entschieden. Auf seinen Reisen taucht Pomerantsev in die grenzenlose Welt der Internetaktivistinnen und -aktivisten ein und zeigt die lokalen Folgen davon auf, wenn sie Kategorien wie Wahrheit und Lüge ins Wanken bringen." (Klappentext)
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"In this edited volume, authors seek to document and analyze how state and non-state actors leverage digital rhetoric as a twenty-first-century weapon of war. Rhet Ops offer readers a chance to focus on the human dimension of rhetorical practice within mobile technologies and social networks: to ref
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lect not only on the durable question of what it means to conduct oneself ethically as a speaker or writer, but also what it means to learn the art of rhetoric as a means to engage adversaries in war and conflict." (Publisher description)
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"The dynamism of Russia’s information warfare is best illustrated by the fact that over the last decade it underwent at least two strategic shifts—after the Russian-Georgian war in 2008 and in 2014 when Russia went from being risk-averse and stealthy to increasingly aggressive and risk-taking. E
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ffective countermeasures, especially those applied in Central and Eastern Europe, must reflect this reality by being highly adaptable and agile—a factor that local anti-information-warfare capacities often lack." (Executive summary)
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"What is hybrid warfare? And what role does information play in today's conflicts? In the context of the technological/information revolution of the last two decades—which has greatly amplified the danger posed by nonmilitary means of political struggle—Hybrid Conflicts and Information Warfare a
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ddresses these questions from the perspectives of both Western and Russian experts. Incorporating both theory and contemporary realities, including the case of the Islamic State, the authors offer a unique dialogue on the nature of conflict in the second decade of the twenty-first century." (Publisher description)
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"Images of suffering children have long been used to illustrate the violence and horror of conflict. In recent years, it is images of dead children that have garnered attention from media audiences around the world. In response to the deaths of four children killed by the Israeli army while playing
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on a Gazan beach, Israeli Prime Minister Netenyahu accused Hamas of generating “telegenically dead” Palestinian children for their cause (CNN 2014). In this article, it argues with this term to consider the appearance of images of dead children in global politics. I draw on a growing literature relating to the corpse as a subject in international relations (IR), asking how children's bodies are understood, following Butler, as “grievable lives.” It explores the notion of “iconic” images and the politics of sharing images of dead bodies and consider global power relations that allow certain children's deaths to be visible and not others. Through this analysis, the article argues that the idea of telegenic death might be productively considered to understand how the fleshy reality of children's deaths contribute to discussions about the representation and visibility of children in contexts of crisis and conflict." (Abstract)
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"This ethnography uses the Syrian case to reflect more broadly on how the networked age reshapes contemporary warfare and impacts on the enactment of violence through images and on images. In stark contrast to the techno-utopias celebrating digital democracy and participatory cultures, Donatella Del
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la Ratta’s analysis exposes the dark side of online practices, where visual regimes of representation and media production dramatically intertwine with modes of destruction and the performance of violence." (Publisher description)
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