Thursday, March 28

how Russia imposes the news gag


Last Tuesday many televisions, radios and web pages in Ukraine they faded to black. At about half past four in the afternoon, a hail of Russian bombs exploded on the Kiev telecommunications tower in an attack with which Moscow he sought to “suppress informational attacks” against his country. Antennas in smoke in a besieged city, the image that this is a war for terrain with conventional weapons, but also a battle for the story in which he shoots himself with propaganda.

With internal pressure growing, the Kremlin is sharpening the mechanisms of repression. The Russian Parliament approved this Friday an amendment that imposes millionaire fines and sentences of up to 15 years in prison to those who spread “falsehoods about the Russian Army.” This measure has forced large international media such as the BBC, CNN, Bloomberg and the German networks, among others, to leave the country, isolating Russian citizens from the information. EL PERIÓDICO DE CATALUNYA, Spanish Television, the Efe agency, the newspaper El País and the Catalan Corporació de Mitjans Audiovisuals have also joined the measure. (CCMA), among others.

That adds up to a media censorship which has already banned the country’s media from talking about “war, aggression or invasion” under the threat of blocking their web pages or imposing heavy fines on them. big media like Novaya Gazeta – led by Nobel Peace Prize winner Dmitri Muratov – have grudgingly complied with Moscow’s imposition while balancing to dodge sanctions and critically report on, for example, Russian attacks on civilians. Others such as the Dozhd television channel or the Ekho Moskvy radio have been forced to close.

However, Putin’s news gag finds loopholes on the internet. Many young Russians find out about the war through social networks, where ‘influencers’ like the blogger Yury Dud have criticized the invasion in front of millions of supporters. “This is the first war of TikTok and you see pacifists raising awareness about the war, but also pro-Russian journalists and a lot of pornography with images of the dead,” says Iago Moreno, a sociologist at the University of Cambridge.

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Although that is a more complex task, Russia has been increasing its efforts to control the internet for months with a law that forces large platforms to remove content that the Kremlin criminalizes. Google, Apple, TikTok and Spotify have complied with the rule, Meta (which owns Facebook and Instagram) and Twitter only parts of it, and Netflix, Twitch and Telegram have refused to do so. This Friday, the Kremlin announced the blocking of access to both Facebook and Twitter in response to the decisions of these networks to limit messages from accounts related to Moscow.

Ukraine uses the internet to its advantage

In the middle of 2022, it is impossible to talk about disinformation and communicative struggle without seeing what happens on the internet. Even though Russia has stood out in recent years for launching psychological manipulation operations outside its borders, analysts agree that it is Ukraine that is best using the social media as a megaphone to amplify your messages and transform something seemingly symbolic like words into broad international support.

The Ukrainian communicative effort has in its favor the fact that it is being the victim of a invasion by a much superior military power, a story of David against Goliath that speeds up the positioning of other nations in its favor. However, it is that very inferiority that he has led to Kyiv to bet on a campaign that plays with the language of the internet: satirical, irreverent and dramatic messages that appeal to emotions, which in the networks translates into greater viralization.

The official accounts of Ukraine in Twitter and Instagram They are a clear example of that. discursive success, going from having a diplomatic and tourist promotion tone to launching propaganda memes for their cause. “The memes they are the posters of the 21st century, both sides are producing them en masse to amplify their political slogans and they are being one of the great sources of information and propaganda in this war”, explains ago Brown.

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So is the use of networks by both the Ukrainian president, Volodymyr Zelenskyand its Minister of Digital Transformation, Mykhailo Fedorov. The former is using his experience as an actor to project a closeness that encourages his citizens and reinforces empathy with the Ukrainian cause. “Zelenski knows political communication very well, he has been a rather erratic president but now he is uncovering himself as a charismatic leader,” he explains. Ruth Ferrero-Turrion Professor of Political Science at the Complutense University of Madrid. “Your videos of her from Parliament, his army green t-shirt… all that staging is making him win the battle for the story and that hurts Putin because it breathes more resistance into the Ukrainian troops.”

The second, only 31 years old and responsible for Zelenski’s presidential campaign in 2019, has launched a successful global campaign on Twitter to pressure more than 50 large companies such as Apple to boycott Russia. Likewise, he has achieved that the tycoon Elon Musk activate its Starlink low-orbit satellite system in Ukraine to guarantee the country’s connection to the Internet, a support that has been a propaganda boost. However, articulating a better communication campaign does not mean that this translates into the field.

Russia fights for the internal story

The Ukrainian communication strategy contrasts with the institutional sobriety of most official Russian accounts. The staging that surrounds Vladimir Putin It has been marked by a military coldness, harsh messages and the now iconic images of their meetings at very long tables. In foreign communication, Moscow is opting for another discursive path. “Putin is comfortable with the role of villain, he plays the card of fear and power to strike terror into Western powers,” says Ferrero. His nuclear threat and his warnings to Macron are a clear example of a psychological operation with which to undermine the enemy’s morale.

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Thus, Russia is focusing on controlling information within its borders. The media landscape tamed by the Kremlin”demonizes” the Ukrainian government as “Nazi”, assures that the invasion – dubbed with the obligatory euphemism “limited military operation” – is to protect the pro-Russians from the donbas of an alleged “genocide” and that his soldiers are being greeted with tears of joy. “Putin has no interest in reaching the audiences of the Western powers, he is addressing the Russian people with a message of victimization against them,” adds Ferrero.

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With all this, the information warfare has also reached European Union (EU). Pressure from Kiev has managed to get Brussels to ban the transmission of the “Kremlin’s media machine”, media such as the RT or the agency Sputnik, forcing the platforms to act to veto their broadcast. However, Ferrero points out, this can have the opposite effect and both amplify the popularity of these networks and reinforce Moscow’s discourse.




www.elperiodico.com

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