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Digital occupation: Pro-Russian bot networks target Ukraine’s occupied territories on Telegram

Yuliia Dukach, Iryna Adam, Meredith Furbish

Atlantic Council, July 16 (2025)

"This joint report from OpenMinds and the Digital Forensic Research Lab (DFRLab) analyzes the activity of a network of 3,634 automated accounts that posted pro-Russian comments on Telegram channels between January 2024 and April 2025 targeting Ukrainian populations inside Russian-occupied territorie ... more

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Audiences of Nazism: Using Media in the Third Reich

Ulrike Weckel (ed.)

New York; Oxford: Berghahn (2024), xii, 290 pp.

"Traces of audience responses to propaganda in the Third Reich are particularly sparse given that the public sphere was so highly regulated. By taking an interdisciplinary and innovative approach to found historical sources of audiences' responses, the contributions to Audiences of Nazism critically ... more

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Dialogue with the Dictator: Authoritarian Legitimation and Information Management in Putin's Russia

Hannah S. Chapman

Cambridge et al.: Cambridge University Press (2024), xvi, 253 pp.

"Dialogue with the Dictator illuminates the ways in which authoritarian regimes structure interaction between citizens and leaders to simultaneously manage information dilemmas and build regime legitimacy. In doing so, it demonstrates the conditions under which managed participation can reinforce or ... more

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Long Live Chairman Mao: Propaganda About Mao Zedong in Chinese Primary School Textbooks (1984–1999)

Shenglan Zhou

International Journal of Communication, volume 18 (2024), pp. 3647-3667

"This article examines the portrayal of Mao Zedong in Chinese literacy textbooks published within the context of the Patriotic Education Campaign during the 1980s and 1990s. Employing critical discourse analysis, this study reveals that Mao is depicted as an authoritative, charismatic, and industrio ... more

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Mapping Chinese Digital Nationalism: A Literature Review

Xiaoyu Zhang, Delia Dumitrica, Jeroen Jansz

International Journal of Communication, volume 18 (2024), pp. 1891-1912

"A growing empirical scholarship examines the rise of Chinese digital nationalism. This scholarship remains scattered across disciplinary and area studies journals, making it difficult to systematize findings and identify knowledge gaps. We review N = 71 peerreviewed articles and book chapters (1990 ... more

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Mapping Belarusian Online Propaganda: Main Themes, Emphases and Trends in 2024

Marat Lesnov, Alesia Rudnik

Friedrich-Ebert-Stiftung (FES) (2024), 18 pp.

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WorldCat (15)

Political Technology: The Globalisation of Political Manipulation

Andrew Wilson

Cambridge et al.: Cambridge University Press (2024), xii, 486 pp.

"Political technology' is a Russian term for the professional engineering of politics. It has turned Russian politics into theatre and propaganda, and metastasised to take over foreign policy and weaponise history. The war against Ukraine is one outcome. In the West, spin doctors and political consu ... more

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Pop-up-Propaganda: Epikrise der russischen Selbstvergiftung. Mit einem illustrierten "Ratgeber für das Überleben"

Irina Rastorgueva

Thomas Martin (Nachwort)

Berlin: Matthes & Seitz (2024), 337 pp.

"Während innerhalb Russlands das Verbot kritischer Medien und die Gleichschaltung der verstaatlichten Sender eine beinahe karikaturhafte Erzählung über traditionelle Werte und die Notwendigkeit der "Militärischen Spezialoperation" hervorbringen, arbeiten sorgfältig geplante Propagandaaktionen i ... more

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Masters of Manipulation: Authoritarian Propaganda in Russia and Turkey

Ali Çelikkan, Andrey Zhvirblis, Can Ertuna, Evgeniy Shtorn, Evin Baris Altintas, Gökçer Tahincioglu, Olga Romanova, Onur Öncü, Roman Zholud, Sibel Yükler

Potsdam: Friedrich Naumann Stiftung; Journalisten und Anwälte für Meinungsfreiheit (JAM) (2024), 38 pp.

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Winning the Battle of Ideas: Exposing Global Authoritarian Narratives and Revitalizing Democratic Principles

Joseph Siegle

Washington, DC: National Endowment for Democracy (NED) (2024), 23 pp.

"Rather than selling authoritarianism as such, authoritarian narratives focus on themes that have popular appeal—while attributing a wide range of visceral grievances to the shortcomings of democracy. Authoritarian narratives fall into four broad categories: 1. Noninterference, Choice, and Threats ... to Sovereignty: Narrative attempts to invoke universal themes such as sovereignty, noninterference, and choice which are presented as under threat from the spread of democracy. 2. Exploiting Grievances in the Global South: Tactics designed to attribute the numerous grievances in the Global South to exploitation by the West. 3. Democracies Failing to Deliver: A narrative that takes aim at the efficacy of democracy and, by implication, amplifies the ill-informed narratives about effectiveness of authoritarian governance. 4. Need for a New World Order: Collectively, the claims of Western interference, exploitation, and governance failures are intended to generate disillusionment with democracy and receptiveness to nondemocratic rule. Autocrats use a variety of channels to disseminate these preferred narratives at scale. The four following methods are particularly noteworthy: 1. Social Media: Authoritarians have taken advantage of the enormous—and still growing—social media sphere to promote narratives legitimizing autocracy. They exploit many users’ limited digital literacy skills through information influence campaigns and the employment of bots and online “troll farms” to peddle their preferred worldview. 2. State Broadcasters: Authoritarian actors also disseminate narratives through state media like RT, Sputnik, Xinhua, and China Global Television Network (CGTN). These outlets have the tone and imprimatur of an official news service, giving them a veneer of credibility that expands their reach. 3. Partnerships with Local Media: Authoritarian state-backed outlets aim to embed their content within national information environments. By disseminating preferred narratives through local media outlets and training foreign journalists, authoritarian actors are able to propagate norms of state control over the public information sphere. 4. Foreign Media Cooptation: Finally, authoritarian states are forging partnerships with other state broadcasters. These relationships have the indirect effect of incentivizing self-censorship and enable the intimidation of journalists and activists who criticize authoritarian leadership." (Executive summary, page 1-.2) more

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Media and power in modern Iran: Mass communication, ideology, and the state

Emily L. Blout

London: Tauris (2023), x, 222 pp.

"Successive Iranian leaders have struggled to navigate the fraught political-cultural space of media in the Islamic Republic-skirting the line between embracing Western communications technologies and rejecting them, between condemning social networking sites as foreign treachery and promoting thems ... more

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Putins Armee der Trolle: Der Informationskrieg des Kreml gegen die demokratische Welt

Jessikka Aro

Bonn: Bundeszentrale für politische Bildung (bpb), Sonderausg. (2023), 397 pp.

"Im Ringen um die globale Deutungshoheit setzt die russische Regierung seit Jahren auf die Verbreitung von Desinformation. Die finnische Journalistin Jessikka Aro hat nicht nur derartige Propagandataktiken aufgedeckt, sie wurde auch selbst zur Zielscheibe orchestrierter Drohungen durch vom Kreml unt ... more

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The Unfreedom Monitor: The Philippines Country Report

Amsterdam: Global Voices Advox (2023), 28 pp.

"Like any authoritarian regime, the Philippine government uses various forms of digital authoritarianism to its advantage. The aim is to win the propaganda war against its perceived enemies so that it can continue implementing policies that are often detrimental to the ordinary folk. While the two i ... more

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The Unfreedom Monitor: Kazakhstan Country Report

Sofya du Boulay

Amsterdam: Global Voices Advox (2023), 21 pp.

"This report focuses on the main trends in digital authoritarian technologies used in Kazakhstan from 2017 to 2022. It contextualises the repressive online mechanisms within the changing political landscape. The January 2022 protests tested the grounds of social and political liberties — the seemi ... more

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Dictatorship and Information: Authoritarian Regime Resilience in Communist Europe and China

Martin K. Dimitrov

New York: Oxford University Press (2023), xix, 470 pp.

"This study offers a systematic theory of the institutional solutions to the dictator’s dilemma, which arises from the incapacity to calibrate repression and concessions due to the lack of information about elite and popular discontent. Empirically, the book presents a detailed discussion of the t ... more

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The Unfreedom Monitor: Observatory Report

Amsterdam: Global Voices Advox (2023), 62 pp.

"Authoritarian practices are not strictly limited to authoritarian states; they are employed by regimes that span the political spectrum. The research approach argues for expanding the understanding of key authoritarian strategies to include persuasion alongside coercion and cooptation, which are id ... more

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Digital China: Überwachungsdiktatur und technologische Avantgarde

Kristin Shi-Kupfer

München: Beck (2023), 190 pp.

"Mit parteistaatlicher Unterstützung avancierten die großen IT-Unternehmen Chinas seit Ende der 1990er Jahre schnell zu den Motoren der am dynamischsten wachsenden Digitalwirtschaft der Welt. Sie adaptierten zunächst Produkte und Geschäftsmodelle aus dem Ausland, gingen danach aber eigene Wege. ... more

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The Unfreedom Monitor: Venezuela Country Report

Amsterdam: Global Voices Advox (2023), 23 pp.

"With the crackdown on radio, TV, and newspapers since 2007, the Venezuelan population is largely dependent on digital spaces: social media is generally the main source of information across the country, and digital media has taken over other types of press and completely changed the media ecosystem ... more

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Media Capture and Journalism as Emotional Labor: How Do Media Professionals Manage Bureaucratic Violence in the Kurdistan Region of Iraq?

Jiyan Faris, Pieter Maeseele, Yazan Badran, Kevin Smets

Journalism Studies, volume 24, issue 7 (2023), pp. 876-895

"This paper focuses on the (in)direct tools of governmental bureaucracy used to control journalistic work in the Kurdistan Region of Iraq (KRI). It calls for understanding media capture not only through structural-level consequences, but also through the methods used to create an environment of inst ... more

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The Unfreedom Monitor: Kyrgyzstan Country Report

Amsterdam: Global Voices Advox (2023), 24 pp.