Digital media environment in wartime. Russian invasion coverage in Ukrainian professional and amateur news media

Nataliia Steblyna

doi:10.35765/hp.2484

Data publikacji : 2024-06-30

Tom 15 Nr 51 (2024)

Digital media environment in wartime. Russian invasion coverage in Ukrainian professional and amateur news media

Nataliia Steblyna

http://orcid.org/0000-0001-9799-9786

DOI: https://doi.org/10.35765/hp.2484

Dział: Vol. 15, No. 51 (2024): Mediation and mediatisation of the contemporary warfare

Abstrakt

RESEARCH OBJECTIVE: The aim of this paper is to compare professional and amateur news media (Telegram) coverage of the Russian invasion of Ukraine and to determine the quality of this coverage.

THE RESEARCH PROBLEM AND METHODS: The popularity of Telegram has been growing since Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine. To describe the digital media environment in wartime, it is important to observe the activity of both professional and amateur media. Webpages containing news texts were exported with Python programs, and news sources were processed using regular expressions.

THE PROCESS OF ARGUMENTATION: At the beginning of the digital platform era there were hopes of a symbiotic relationship between professional media and amateur digital platforms, where the latter would provide more diverse content, thus helping some ignored groups to be heard by the media. As for Telegram, it has a growing number of users and channels, but there are almost no restrictions regarding content. Thus, together with some “alternative” and “ignored” voices, production of harmful content on Telegram is observed around the world: hate speech, extremism, racism, conspiracy theories and propaganda. In Ukraine, Telegram is the most popular source of information during the full-scale Russian invasion and Ukrainians trust it, therefore its contribution to informing people should be analysed.

RESEARCH RESULTS: The conducted analysis has demonstrated that popular amateur news media mostly fail to provide clear references to news sources in the war period (in March to October 2022, only every third to fifth post contained a clear reference to a news source). On the other hand, the most popular mass media and amateur mass media sources are mostly the same: media resources connected with the president and the government, verified military sources, etc.

CONCLUSIONS, INNOVATIONS AND RECOMMENDATIONS: The scarcity of news sources given in Telegram posts confirms previous observations about the low quality of content on Telegram. However, in some cases Telegram channels use reliable official or professional media news sources. Thus, some additional steps are needed to improve the situation: legislative changes for Telegram channels, ownership transparency, further monitoring of content quality, and media literacy campaigns for channels’ audiences.

Szczegóły

Bibliografia

Statystyki

Autorzy

Pobierz pliki

pdf (English)

Zasady cytowania

Wskaźniki altmetryczne

Licencja

Uwagi dotyczące praw autorskich

Autorzy publikujący w tym czasopiśmie wyrażają zgodę na następując warunki:

Autorzy zachowują prawa autorskie, przyznając czasopismu prawo do pierwszej publikacji swojego tekstu jednocześnie zarejestrowanego pod numerem licencji CC BY-ND, która pozwala innym na korzystanie z tego tekstu z uznaniem autorstwa tekstu oraz pierwotnej publikacji w tym czasopiśmie.
Autorzy proszeni są o nawiązywanie odrębnych, dodatkowych porozumień wynikających z umowy, dotyczących dystrybucji opublikowanej w czasopiśmie wersji tekstu nie na prawach wyłączności (np. opublikowanie go w repozytorium instytucji lub w innym czasopiśmie), z potwierdzeniem pierwszej publikacji w tym czasopiśmie.

Wyraża się zgodę i zachęca autorów do publikacji ich tekstu w Internecie (np. w repozytorium instytucji lub na jej stronie internetowej) przed lub podczas procesu składania tekstu jako, że może to prowadzić do korzystnych wymian oraz wcześniejszego i większego cytowania opublikowanego tekstu (Patrz The Effect of Open Access). Zalecamy wykorzystanie dowolnego portalu stowarzyszeń badawczych z niżej wymienionych:

Bibliografia

Akifah, A. (2014). Citizen Journalism: a Study of New Form of News Media Reporting. JURNAL ACADEMICA Fisip Untad, 4(1), 774–782, https://media.neliti.com/media/publications/28514-EN-citizen-journalism-a-study-of-new-form-of-news-media-reporting.pdf (ac-cessed on 16th December 2023).

Allan, S., & Thorsen, E. (2009). Citizen Journalism: Global Perspectives. New York: Peter Lang Publishing.

Atton, C. (2002). Alternative media. London: Sage.

Baumgartner, J., Zannettou, S., Squire, M., & Blackburn, J. (2020). Proceedings of the International AAAI Conference on Web and Social Media. The Pushshift Telegram Dataset (стр. 840–847). At-lanta: the Association for the Advancement of Artificial Intelli-gence. DOI: 10.1609/icwsm.v14i1.7348

Berkowitz, D. (1987). TV News Sources and News Channels: A Study in Agenda-Building. Journalism Quarterly, 64(2–3), 508–513. DOI: 10.1177/107769908706400231

Bratuschak, S. (11 Sept. 2020). Top Websites of Ukraine Rating. IMI.org.ua, https://imi.org.ua/monitorings/rejtyng-top-sajtiv-ukrayiny-i34992 (accessed on 16th December 2023).

Carmichael, V., Adamson, G., Sitter, K.C., & Whitley, R. (2019). Me-dia coverage of mental illness: a comparison of citizen journalism vs. professional journalism portrayals. Journal of Mental Health, 28(5), 520–526. DOI: 10.1080/09638237.2019.1608934

Carpenter, S. (2009). News Quality Differences in Online Newspaper and Citizen Journalism Sites. In J. Rosenberry, J.S. Burton (Eds.), Public Journalism 2.0 (pp. 69–82). New York: Routledge.

Chabanenko, M. (2017). Facebook and Agency Journalism in the In-ternet (the Case of News of the UNIAN website). Scientific Notes of the Institute of Journalism, 1(66), 93–97.

Chadwick, A. (2017). The hybrid media system: Politics and power. Ox-ford University Press.

Clifford, B., & Powell, H. (2019). Encrepted Extremism Inside the Eng-lish-Speaking Islamic State Ecosystem on Telegram. Washington: The George Washington University.

Detector Media. (2023). #DisinfoCronicle. Detector Media, https://disinfo.detector.media/en (accessed on 16th December 2023).

Dzyuba, I.M., Zhukovsky, A.I., & Zheleznyak, M.G. (2007). Dzerkalo Tyzhnya. Kyiv: NAN Ukrayiny.

Edelson, L., Nguyen, M., Goldstein, I., Goga, O., McCoy, D., & Lauin-ger, T. (2021). Proceedings of the 21st ACM Internet Measure-ment Conference. Understanding engagement with U.S. (mis)information news sources on Facebook (стр. 444–463). New York: ACM. DOI: 10.1145/3487552.3487859

Entman, R.M., & Usher, N. (2018). Framing in a Fractured Democra-cy: Impacts of Digital Technology on Ideology, Power and Cas-cading Network Activation. Journal of Communication, 68, 298–308. DOI: 10.1093/joc/jqx019

Hoseini, M., Melo, P., Benevenuto, F., Feldmann, A., & Zannettou, S. (2021). On the Globalization of the QAnon Conspiracy Theory Through Telegram. DOI: 10.48550/arXiv.2105.13020

Ilyuk, K. (2021). Will there be a Russian offensive? Analysis of the Krem-lin’s tactics in the Ukrainian segment of social media. Detector Me-dia, https://detector.media/monitorynh-internetu/article/194825/2021-12-15-will-there-be-a-russian-offensive-analysis-of-the-kremlins-tactics-in-the-ukrainian-segment-of-social-media (accessed on 16th December 2023).

Ilyuk, K., Sapolovych, E., & Ryaboshtan, I. (2022). «Now we will live to the fullest!». How and why Russia has created a Telegram channels network for the occupied territories of Ukraine. Detector Media, https://detector.media/monitorynh-internetu/article/199010/2022-05-05-now-we-will-live-to-the-fullest-how-and-why-russia-has-creat-ed-a-telegram-channels-network-for-the-occupied-territories-of-ukraine (accessed on 16th December 2023).

IMI (2021a). Eight of Ten Most Popular Telegram Channels in Ukraine are Anonymous – IMI Research. IMI.org.ua, https://imi.org.ua/en/news/eight-of-ten-most-popular-telegram-channels-in-ukraine-are-anonymous-imi-research-i41304 (ac-cessed on 16th December 2023).

IMI (2021b). From “Corona” to Shariy: the Most Popular Telegram Channels Analysis. IMI.org.ua, https://imi.org.ua/monitorings/vid-korony-do-shariya-analiz-najpopulyarnishyh-ukrayinskyh-telegram-kanaliv-i41267 (accessed on 16th December 2023).

IMI (2022). White List: 10 Media That Achieved The Highest Quality. IMI.org.ua, https://imi.org.ua/en/monitorings/white-list-10-media-that-achieved-the-highest-quality-i41548 (accessed on 16th December 2023).

IMI (2023). 519 Crimes against Journalists and Media in Ukraine Com-mited by Russia in the Year and Four Months of the Big War. IMI.org.ua, https://imi.org.ua/en/monitorings/519-crimes-against-journalists-and-media-in-ukraine-committed-by-russia-in-the-year-and-four-months-i53634 (accessed on 16th December 2023).

Internews (2022). Ukrainian citizens consume more news, are more re-silient to disinformation, and trust their media more during Russia’s war in 2022. Internews.in.ua, https://internews.in.ua/news/ukrainian-citizens-consume-more-news-are-more-resilient-to-disinformation-and-trust-their-media-more-during-russia-s-war-in-2022 (accessed on 16th December 2023).

Izbirkom. (2022). Monitoring of Regional Media, Social Networks of Odesa Region, Russian Media for Hostile Information Operations, Disinformation, Covert Attempts to Manipulate Public Opinion. Odesa: CVU, http://cvu.od.ua/db_pic/images/files/file_1657126497.0931.pdf (accessed on 16th December 2023).

Júnior, M., Melo, P., Kansaon, D., Mafra, V., Sá, K., & Benevenuto, F. (2022). Telegram Monitor: Monitoring Brazilian Political Groups and Channels on Telegram. DOI: 10.48550/arXiv.2202.04737

Kalashlynska, M. (2022). Disinformation and Propaganda Trends in Social Networks of Southern Ukraine for 5 Months of the War. Intent, https://intent.press/publications/medialiteracy/2022/trendi-dezinfor-mac-iyi-ta-propagandi-v-socialnih-media-pivdnya-ukrayini-za-5-misyaciv-vijni/.

Keen, A. (2007). The Cult of Amateur. How today’s Internet is killing our culture. New York: Crown Business.

Kitchens, B., Johnson, S.L., & Gray, P. (2020). Understanding Echo Chambers and Filter Bubbles: The Impact of Social Media on Di-versification and Partisan Shifts in News Consumption. MIS Quarterly, 44(4), 1619–1649.

Knuutila, A., Herasimenka, A., Bright, J., Nielsen, R., & Howard, P.N. (2020). Junk News Distribution on Telegram: The Visibility of Eng-lish-language News Sources on Public Telegram Channels (Т. 5). Ox-ford, UK: Project on Computational Propaganda, https://demtech.oii.ox.ac.uk/research/posts/junk-news-distribution-on-telegram-the-visibility-of-english-language-news-sources-on-public-telegram-channels (accessed on 16th December 2023).

Lopez-Garcia, A., & Benites, R. (2022). Reputation analysis of news sources in Twitter: Particular case of Spanish presidential election in 2019. ArXiv, 17.

Lopez-Garcia, X., Rodriguez-Vazquez, A.-I., & Pereira-Farina, X. (2017). Technological Skills and New Professional Profiles: Pre-sent Challenges for Journalism. Comunicar, 53(XXV), 81–90.

Manning, P. (2013). Financial journalism, news sources and the banking crisis. Journalism, 14, 173–189.

MediaSapiens (16 July 2020). Journalists defined the most respectful Ukrainian media. MS.detector.media, https://ms.detector.media/trendi/post/25077/2020-07-16-zhurnalisty-vyznachyly-naybilsh-avtorytetni-ukrainski-zmi/ (accessed on 16th December 2023).

Meirik, P., & Franklyn, A.E. (2022). Seeing and Believing Pro-Trump Fake News: The Interacting Roles of Online News Sources, Parti-sanship, and Education. International Journal of Communication, 16, 3379–3401.

Mu, Y., & Aletras, N. (2020). Identifying Twitter users who repost unreliable news sources with linguistic information. PeerJ , 6. DOI: 10.7717/peerj-cs.325

Newman, N., Dutton, W., & Blank, G. (2013). Social media in the changing ecology of news: The fourth and fifth estates in Britain. International Journal of Internet Science, 7(1).

Ng, L.H., & Loke, J.Y. (2020). Analyzing Public Opinion and Misin-formation in a COVID-19 Telegram Group Chat. IEEE Internet Comput, 25(2), 84–91. DOI: 10.1109/MIC.2020.3040516

POID. (2023). The Methodology of Content Quality Identification in Regional Print and Online Mass Media, https://idpo.org.ua/wp-content/uploads/methodology-2023.pdf (accessed on 16th December 2023).

Puente, S., Saavedra, G., & Grassau, D. (2011). Content analysis: Ab-sence of journalistic standards in citizen media. Cuadernos.info, 28, 1932. DOI: 10.7764/cdi.28.265

Reuters Institute. (2022). Digital News Report. Oxford: Reuters Insti-tute for the Study of Journalism, https://reutersinstitute.politics.ox.ac.uk/sites/default/files/2022-06/Digital_News-Report_2022.pdf (accessed on 16th December 2023).

Salsabila, K., & Adi, I.R. (2022). Resisting through Citizen Journalism: a Critical Discourse Analysis on the Black Lives Matter Move-ment on Twitter. Rubikon, 9(1), 38–54. DOI: 10.22146/rubikon.v9i1.73151

Sheen, G.C.-H., Tung, H.H., & Wu, W.-C. (2021). Citizen journalism reduces the credibility deficit of authoritarian government in risk communication amid COVID-19 outbreaks. Plos One, 16(12), 114. DOI: 10.1371/journal.pone.0260961

Sigal, L.V. (1973). Rerporrers and Officials: The Organization and Poli-tics of Newsmaking. Lexington: Heath and Co.

SimilarWeb (2023). Top Websites Ranking Most Visited News & Media Publishers Websites in Ukraine. Similarweb.com, https://www.similarweb.com/top-websites/ukraine/news-and-media (accessed on 16th December 2023).

Steblyna, N. (2022). Pro-Russian propaganda or hype: how popular Odesa Telegram-channels cover “Ukrainian issue”. Intent, https://intent.press/publications/medialiteracy/2022/prorosijska-propagan-da-chi-hajp-abo-yak-populyarni-telegram-kanali-odesi-visvitlyuyut-ukrayinske-pitannya (accessed on 16th December 2023).

Steblyna, N. (2021). News Sources Computer Analysis of Regional Odesa Mass Media. Obraz, 3(37), 27–37.

Sumiala, J., Tikka, M., Huhtamäki, J. & Valaskivi, K. (2016). #JeSuis-Charlie : Towards a Multi-Method Study of Hybrid Media Events. Media and Communication, 4, 97–108.

The Center for Content Analysis. (2022). “ARMS SMUGGLING”: THE EMPIRE STRIKES AN INFORMATION BLOW. Kyiv, https://ukrcontent.com/en/reports/kontrabanda-zbroi-imperiya-zavdae-informacijnij-udar1.html (accessed on 16th December 2023).

Urman, A., & Katz, S. (2020). What they do in the shadows: examin-ing the far-right networks on Telegram. Information, Communica-tion & Society, 904–923. DOI: 10.1080/1369118X.2020.1803946

Urman, A., Ho, J.C., & Katz, S. (2020). “No Central Stage”: Tele-gram-based activity during the 2019 protests in Hong Kong. SocArXiv, 17. DOI: 10.31235/osf.io/ueds4

Walther, S., & McCoy, A. (2021). US Extremism on Telegram: Fueling Disinformation, Conspiracy Theories, and Accelerationism. Per-spectives on Terrorism, 15(2), 100–124.

Wijermars, M., & Lokot, T. (2022). Is Telegram a “harbinger of free-dom”? The performance, practices, and perception of platforms as political actors in authoritarian states. Post-Soviet Affairs, 38(1-2), 125–145. DOI: 10.1080/1060586X.2022.2030645

Willaert, T., Peeters, S., Seijbel, J., & Van Raemdonck, N. (2022). Dis-information networks: A quali-quantitative investigation of an-tagonistic Dutch-speaking Telegram channels. First Monday, 27(9). DOI: 10.5210/fm.v27i5.12533

Williams, A.E. (2015). Environmental News Journalism, Public Rela-tions and News Sources. В A. Hansen, & R. Cox, The Routledge Handbook of Environment and Communication (стр. 197–206). Lon-don: Routledge.

Wong, B. (2023). Top Social Media Statistics And Trends Of 2023. Forbes, https://www.forbes.com/advisor/business/social-media-statistics/ (accessed on 16th December 2023).

Total abstract views : 1

PDF Downloads : 6