"In early 2020 hromadske reached a crisis point. Despite many successes achieved over 7 years of existence the organization was struggling motivation was low, staff turnover was high, previously set goals seemed irrelevant or unrealistic. The path forward was unclear. From March to September 2020 hr
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omadske embarked on a journey to recreate its organizational structure, operations, planning and team management, the revenue model … basically everything related to setting and realizing goals. Such transformations are rare in the media industry. Big changes in how things are done can be perceived as an admission of past mistakes or failures something that doesn’t sit well for many managers in our image conscious industry. More importantly, media transformations over focus on the visible part the journalism. But problems in editorial are often a symptom of deeper issues. hromadske decided to “pop the hood” and dig into the organization’s engine starting from the basics. The present document aims to provide a preliminary template for other media contemplating radical change, that we hope will be further developed by other media organizations going through similar issues. It lays out the challenges we faced, what we did to resolve them, and the lessons we learned along the way. We hope it will provide some insights and guidance." (Page 1)
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"Since the start of the Trump era, the United States and the Western world has finally begun to wake up to the threat of online warfare and the attacks from Russia. The question no one seems to be able to answer is: what can the West do about it? Central and Eastern European states, however, have be
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en aware of the threat for years. Nina Jankowicz has advised these governments on the front lines of the information war. The lessons she learnt from that fight, and from her attempts to get US congress to act, make for essential reading. How to Lose the Information War takes the reader on a journey through five Western governments' responses to Russian information warfare tactics - all of which have failed. She journeys into the campaigns the Russian operatives run, and shows how we can better understand the motivations behind these attacks and how to beat them. Above all, this book shows what is at stake: the future of civil discourse and democracy, and the value of truth itself." (Publisher description)
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"Exploring the ways in which language and conflict are intertwined and interrelated, this book examines the changes that have taken place in the public discourse of the Ukraine and Russia since 2014 and the beginning of the 'Ukrainian Crisis.' Through analysis of the narratives constructed by differ
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ent social groups in Ukraine, Language of Conflict shows how discourse can illuminate the competing worldviews and the conflicting positions of the various stakeholders in this conflict. Through critical discourse analysis and multimodality, this book explores the prevalent narratives and the linguistic features of the salient discourses surrounding this conflict. Using Russian- and Ukrainian-language texts from traditional and social media, contributors from Ukraine, Russia and beyond investigate discourses surrounding the most important topics of the crisis: its causes and goals, the sides, and the values and ideologies of the opposing parties. Highlighting the ways in which the stress produced by social discord, economic hardship and violence, is reflected in verbal aggression, slurs, insults and profane language of extraordinary linguistic creativity, Language of Conflict provides insight into the ways people think about, respond to and experience the reality of conflict in their everyday communication." (Publisher description)
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"The paper offers an analysis of media assistance, as a specific form of foreign aid, that Poland offers to strengthen media development in Belarus and Ukraine. It shows if Poland tailors media assistance according to the local context and existing challenges for democratic changes of recipient coun
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tries’ media systems. The study builds on the literature concerning the media, development and democratization, in particular looking at media assistance as both democratic aid and public diplomacy. It reveals that Poland’s approaches to media development in Belarus and Ukraine do differ: Poland mainly provides autocratic Belarus with technical support for media established outside of that country, while clearly focusing on media capacity development in democratizing Ukraine. The findings show that Polish media assistance, however, is unlikely to boost media freedom in Belarus as is usually expected as an outcome of democratic aid and is under-financed in the case of Ukraine." (Abstract)
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"The main aim of the present study is to assess the status quo and the influencing factors of media viability in developing countries and economies in transition. Accordingly, three general research questions have been formulated: 1. Which factors determine the viability of alternative online news m
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edia organizations in developing countries and economies in transition? 2. What are the transnational similarities and differences for media viability of alternative news media organizations? 3. How are financial sustainability, editorial independence, and journalistic quality interrelated in the context of media viability of alternative online news media organizations?" (Page 21)
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"The 2019 Europe and Eurasia Media Sustainability Index (MSI) saw another improvement in the combined average score for the 21 countries studied: In 2018, the combined average score was 1.84, and in 2019 this increased to 1.86. In comparison with the previous year’s study, there were modest gains
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at the regional level in Objectives 1 (Freedom of Speech), 2 (Professional Journalism), and 3 (Plurality); the largest increase happened in Objective 5 (Supporting Institutions), which moved from 1.99 in 2018 to 2.04 in 2019. Objective 4 (Business Management) saw a slight decline, reflecting the financial and economic challenges media across Europe and Eurasia continue to experience. At the country level, Armenia moved into the highest ranking position (by overall score) of all countries studied by the MSI with an overall score of 2.60 – powered by, in the words of the chapter’s author, “[a] momentous revolution, dubbed “velvet” by its leader, Nikol Pashinyan, [that] changed the Armenian political landscape, turned the media world upside down, and made 2018 a truly unprecedented year in Armenia’s modern history.” Following Armenia, the top five highest ranked countries included Kosovo (2.53), Albania (2.49), and Montenegro and Romania (tied at 2.45)." (Executive summary, page ix)
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"Spotlight report on the state of public access to information in Canada, Indonesia, Mongolia, Pakistan, Serbia, Sierra Leone, South Africa, Tanzania, Tunisia, and Ukraine prepared for the 2019 cycle of the Voluntary National Reviews and the 2019 UN High Level Political Forum." (Subtitle)
"Artificial intelligence (AI) is now receiving unprecedented global attention as it finds widespread practical application in multiple spheres of activity. But what are the human rights, social justice and development implications of AI when used in areas such as health, education and social service
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s, or in building “smart cities”? How does algorithmic decision making impact on marginalised people and the poor? This edition of Global Information Society Watch (GISWatch) provides a perspective from the global South on the application of AI to our everyday lives. It includes 40 country reports from countries as diverse as Benin, Argentina, India, Russia and Ukraine, as well as three regional reports. These are framed by eight thematic reports dealing with topics such as data governance, food sovereignty, AI in the workplace, and so-called “killer robots”. While pointing to the positive use of AI to enable rights in ways that were not easily possible before, this edition of GISWatch highlights the real threats that we need to pay attention to if we are going to build an AI-embedded future that enables human dignity." (Back cover)
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"Computational propaganda is an emergent form of political manipulation that occurs over the Internet. The term describes the assemblage of social media platforms, autonomous agents, algorithms, and big data tasked with the manipulation of public opinion. Our research shows that this new mode of int
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errupting and influencing communication is on the rise around the globe. Advances in computing technology, especially around social automation, machine learning, and artificial intelligence mean that computational propaganda is becoming more sophisticated and harder to track at an alarming rate. This introduction explores the foundations of computational propaganda. It describes the key role that automated manipulation of algorithms plays in recent efforts to control political communication worldwide. We discuss the social data science of political communication and build upon the argument that algorithms and other computational tools now play an important political role in areas like news consumption, issue awareness, and cultural understanding. We unpack the key findings of the nine country case studies that follow—exploring the role of computational propaganda during events from local and national elections in Brazil to the ongoing security crisis between Ukraine and Russia. Our methodology in this work has been purposefully mixed, we make use of quantitative analysis of data from several social media platforms and qualitative work that includes interviews with the people who design and deploy political bots and disinformation campaigns. Finally, we highlight original evidence about how this manipulation and amplification of disinformation is produced, managed, and circulated by political operatives and governments and describe paths for both democratic intervention and future research in this space." (Abstract)
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"Laut ukrainischen Journalisten und Medienaktivisten hat sich die Lage der Medien in der Ukraine seit dem Euromaidan 2013/2014 in einigen Aspekten verbessert. Die Medien können freier berichten, die Regierung aktiver kontrollieren und sie fühlen sich vom Staat weniger unter Druck gesetzt. Gleichze
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itig bestehen nennenswerte Einschränkungen, z. B. hinsichtlich der Unabhängigkeit und Pluralität der Medien. Einige Probleme sind heute gar akuter als vor fünf Jahren." (Zusammenfassung)
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"Our analysis of millions of Russian tweets over 2014-2018 reveals that bots make up a large proportion of the Russian political Twittersphere. However, an important lesson from our region is that one cannot assume that simply because there are bots present in the Russian political Twittersphere tha
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t they are pro-Kremlin. Instead, as it turns out, pro-opposition, pro-Kiev, and neutral bots proliferate as well. We therefore also developed machine learning models that allow us to distinguish between three major groups of political bots in Russia at scale, including pro-Kremlin, pro-opposition, and pro-Kyiv bots. It is worth noting, though, that the fourth residual category of bots that we call neutral actually make up a plurality of these bot-orientation types. Our preliminary analysis of bot activity shows that across the entire data set, bots mainly seem to be being used to amplify political messages. In the case of neutral bots, amplification is conducted via tweeting repetitive texts, whereas non-neutral bots achieve this via retweeting. It appears that the sources of retweets from Russian political bots are either mass media with strong political orientation or prominent political figures. Exciting topics for future research would include more deeply diving into the topics of the messages shared by bots, better understanding whether the target audience for these shared messages are humans or other computer algorithms (e.g., to influence search rankings), and testing hypotheses related to over-time variation in the use of political bots, both in Russia and beyond." (Conclusion)
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"Students who received Learn to Discern (L2D) lessons performed better on all assessment tasks: identifying facts and opinions, false stories, hate speech, and demonstrated deeper knowledge of the news media sector. L2D students reported healthier media consumption habits and behavior and viewed cri
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tical information consumption skills (CIC) as more useful in their lives. Females performed better than males in most survey tasks, reported greater appreciation of critical information consumption skills, and reported better critical information consumption practices. L2D students found courses that integrated critical information consumption lessons more interesting and memorable than the students who did not take courses integrated with L2D." (Highligts, slide 9)
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"This report describes and analyses how online propaganda against journalists across the world - through hate, harassment, threats and fabricated news – undermines independent reporting, sows doubt among the public and makes journalists, in particular female journalists, open for online attacks an
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d physical abuse to the detriment of freedom of expression and open, democratic societies. To stem the tidal wave of mostly anonymous online propaganda against journalists, in particularly female journalists across the world who are exposed to unacceptable amounts of online sexual abuse, Fojo Media Institute, the publisher of this report, plans to set up #journodefender, a global hub to monitor, investigate and take action against the-ends-justifies-the-means trolling with particular focus on assisting journalism in countries that are particularly badly affected." (Prologue)
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"This collection covers the major trends of the media environment of the post-Communist world and their recent development, with special focus on Russia and the post-Soviet space. The term ‘media environment’ covers not just traditional print and electronic media, but new media as well, and rang
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es from the political to entertainment and various artistic spheres. What role do market forces play in the process of media democratization, and how do state structures regulate, suppress, or use capitalism toward their own gain? What degree of informational pluralism has been achieved in the newly independent republics? What are the prospects for transparency and the participation of civil society in Russian and Eurasian media? To what degree do trends in post-Communist media reflect global trends? Is there a worldwide convergence with regard to both media formats and political messaging? Western observers usually pay their keenest attention to the role of media in Russia and Eurasia during national elections. While this is a valid focus, the present volume [...] aims at understanding the deeper overall ‘media philosophies’ that characterize post-Soviet media systems and environments, and the type of identity formation that they are promoting." (Publisher description)
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"This article explores the dynamics of digital (dis)information in the conflict between Russia and Ukraine. International Relations scholars have presented the online debate in terms of ‘information warfare’—that is, a number of strategic campaigns to win over local and global public opinion,
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largely orchestrated by the Kremlin and pro-western authorities. However, this way of describing the online debate reduces civil society to a mere target for manipulation. This article presents a different understanding of the debate. By examining the social media engagement generated by one of the conflict's most important events—the downing of the Malaysian Airlines Flight 17 (MH17) over Ukraine—we explore how competing claims about the cause of the plane crash are disseminated by the state, media and civil society. By analysing approximately 950,000 tweets, the article demonstrates how individual citizens are more than purveyors of government messages; they are the most active drivers of both disinformation and attempts to counter such information. These citizen curators actively shape competing narratives about why MH17 crashed and citizens, as a group, are four times more likely to be retweeted than any other type of user. Our findings challenge conceptualizations of a state-orchestrated information war over Ukraine, and point to the importance of citizen activity in the struggle over truths during international conflicts." (Abstract)
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"As before, the popularity of TV among older viewers (46+) greatly contributes to its leading position in the media consumption totals. As usual, residents in the western regions comprise the largest TV audience among all regions of Ukraine. 1+1 and Inter remain the most popular TV channels in the c
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ountry. Digital (internet) media remains the most popular news source among younger audiences, with internet users aged 18-45 years preferring news sites, and youth (up to 35 years old) – social networks. As before, most consumers prefer news aggregators (like ukr.net) over other digital media outlets. The social media consumption patterns keep changing – the Facebook audience is gradually growing, while the Russian social networks have lost their leading positions.The levels of trust in both national and regional media have increased in all media categories. This trend was observed in all regions of Ukraine. Public trust in Russian media remains low - in fact, levels of trust in Russian TV, radio and press continue to decrease year in and year out since 2014." (Key findings, page 5)
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