Media Chum: Ukraine Sets the Mood for Resistance
Ukraine has opted for an open media strategy; a difficult terrain to master, with constantly shifting best practice. Regimes resort to bots to churn out a relentless storm of online propaganda, as do resistance movements.
Their avatars then struggle for cyber control. The status quo might stay unchanged, but each side has to keep up to date, so as not to let the balance shift in the opposition’s favor.During the 2014 Russian “liberation” of Crimea, the Ukrainian government realized that it had to do something to counteract the Russian media supremacy in the region. The government banned anybody involved in government at any level and from any party from founding a press outlet, and enforced funding transparency. In 2020, they criminalized “fake news.” In addition, there was a significant migration of public engagement to social media platforms. Ukrainians are not having to absorb a Russian diet of information, although they can if they want to.
This leveled the playing field somewhat, and pro-Ukrainian ideas did not have to covertly embed themselves in folk tales—they could now name the Iron Wolf.
There are three “media audiences”: My state, the other state, and the world. Ukraine is up two-one on that score card.