Tag Archives: Ukraine

Lviv Media Forum. Engaging journalists to communicate with readers

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lvivmediaforumOn May 28-30, 2015 Lviv hosted the biggest media conference in Ukraine – Lviv Media Forum bringing together 600 participants from 10 countries. I visited #lvivmediaforum as a speaker on May 30, third day of the conference. According to participants, I talked to, third day was the most successful one – 16 lectures were held in the premises of Ukrainian Catholic University – in rooms equipped for lecturing and interaction with attendants.

My lecture on content curation by means of social media for journalists brought 40 participants, including representatives of Kyiv Post, IT Kharkiv (Hromadske Kharkiv), journalists from Odesa, Izmail, Rivne, Lviv and other regions. On the eve of my lecture, ex-President of Georgia Mikhail Saakashvili has been reported to occupy the post of governor of Odessa region in Ukraine, thus, I started discussion with the question on news gathering of the alleged appointment. We have discussed why the news was published online, which sources proved it, what was background of the appointment.

The findings were the following – Igor Shevchenko, the minister of ecology was the first who published the news through his Facebook profile. State official, host of TV-shows Anton Geraschenko commented on Saakashvili appointment, advocating the choice of President Poroshenko. Through monitoring of social media, we found out that Saakashvili participated in a big march in Odesa a week before – it could serve as preparations for Odesa residents to accept the appointment. Also, as soon as news was published, Russian bots started campaign to mock Saakashvili.

We also discussed hot topics for newsrooms – how to be prepared to cover breaking news or sport events (Ice Hockey World Championship, League of Europe football games). Only few newsrooms in Ukraine plan coverage aiming to involve readers in news consumption. Novoye Vremya, Podrobnosti.ua, 24 TV Channel demonstrates well-prepared strategies to involve readers. For example, Novoye Vremya Coub channel has reached over 9 million views and the number of their coubs surpassed 180 clips.

Additional links on LvivMediaForum:

Official site with video of lectures – http://lvivmediaforum.com/

Twitter-coverage on Day 1 of the forum – https://storify.com/insider_ua/yak-pochinavsya-lvivmediaforum-pershiy-den

Instagram-coverage on Day 1 of the forum – https://storify.com/insider_ua/nebanalni-instagrami-lvivmediaforum

Russian professor lectures about media manipulations of Russia TV channels

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Manipulation of public agenda, transfer, the use of mythology, demonization are one of few approaches, Russian TV channels manipulate public opinion in Russia to portray Ukraine as chaos and Russia as cosmos, the symbol of stability. Russian professor of history Valeriy Solovei delivers a bright lecture to expose propaganda in Russian media.

Note: Valeriy Solovei is a professor of Moscow State University after Lomonosov. He has academic freedom to share his knowledge of media technologies to students. Valeriy Solovei tweets via @V_Solovey.

Mocking Russian propagandist journalists. How does it work?

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Lifenews at Feb 13 18-21-48

For the international community Russian LIfeNews TV  channel is a classic example of the worst propaganda and misinformation. It’s so-called journalists follow insurgents in Donbass and appear with their camera as soon as shelling or fight begin. Some even claim, if you see Russian journalists with camera, expect bombing or shelling. LifeNews poses itself as “the most breaking news”. They always ready to pay for unique content – user’s footage of catastrophes or accidents.

This week LifeNews team among many other media came to Minsk Summit – Ukraine-Russian-Germany-France talks to stop the war in Donbass through cease fire.  On the eve of talk LifeNews journalist Aleksandr Yanyshev assaulted two Ukrainian journalists. He started yelling at them and when run out of arguments, he started …barking. It was shot by other journalists and published online.

The episode was widely discussed in social media and central Ukrainian TV stations. Users started mocking the behavior of Russian journalists producing Coub video. Coub is a platform that helps to create looped video. It is easily managed and let users add music and footage from elsewhere.

The best examples of mocking LifeNews incident in Minsk are bellow:

1. LifeNews and Russian talk – http://coub.com/view/4z8z7

2. Lifenews and Who Let the Dog Out? http://coub.com/view/4z9nj

3. LifeNews as idiot http://coub.com/view/4zbu2

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Fake observer from Serbia Dragana Trifkovic joined terrorists in Donbass to love Putin even stronger

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Information war against Ukraine run by Kremlin-backed media is supported by pro-Russian puppets, employed by Russian strategists. The recent evidence of this scheme leads to Dragana Trifkovic, a 38-year old woman from Serbia, who joined other foreigners on so-called LNR and DNR elections in Lugansk and Donetsk temporary occupied regions on November 2, 2014. As a Serbian citizen, Trifkovic left many traces of her visit to Donbass via social media – she was posting photos of her meetings with Russian terrorists in Donetsk and Lugansk regions. Known as a supporter of Russia, Trifkovic was linked to neo-Nazi Russian groups and was heavily commented in Twitter.

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On November 9, 2014 she deleted her Twitter account – @DrTrifkovic. Nevertheless, Google cache kept screenshots of her profile:
DRAGANA FB Screenshot at Nov 10 15-27-28

Dragana1 at Nov 10 15-24-29

Dragana 3 Screenshot at Nov 10 15-28-51

While her Twitter account is deleted, her Facebook profile is active. A supporter of terrorists exrpesses her love to Russian President Vladimir Putin:
Dragana - Screenshot at Nov 10 16-00-14

Serbian “expert” might have different reasons to love Putin, but her links to neo-nazi groups in Russia question self-proclaimed good intentions of so called LNR and DNR authorities.

Anton Shehovtsev analyses in his blog.

Kremlin will employ puppet “election monitors” that will “observe” and legitimise the “elections” held by the terrorists. Evidence suggests that two “election monitoring organisations” have been in charge of setting up the “election observation missions” for the DNR/LNR: the Eurasian Observatory of Democracy and Elections (EODE) run by Belgian fascist Luc Michel and the European Centre for Geopolitical Analysis (ECGA) run by Polish far right politician Mateusz Piskorski – both have been in the service of the Kremlin’s foreign policy since 2005-2006.

Trifkovic describes herself as a Director General of Center for Geostrategic Studies in Belgrade and claims she is an author at some Serbian sites, such as Fond Slobodan Jovanović, Geopolitika and Novi Standard. Seems, the intellectual level of Serbian elites is quite low if such experts represent Serbian think tanks.

Fake Anti-terrorist operation page of Ukrainian army in Facebook misleads readers

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Pro-terrorists users have created a fake Facebook page for Press-Center of Anti-terrorist operation in Ukraine to misinform users about the Ukrainian army fighting against terrorists in Eastern Ukraine. By layout the fake page is identical to the official one – it has the same cover photo, avatar and mission statement.

Many pro-Ukrainian users liked the fake page, in particular 13 my Facebook friends did.  While official page of Press-Center of Anti-terrorist operation has 52 300 fans, the fake one – just 3800 fans. The fake page was launched on July 16, 2014 and publishes pro-Russian news and updates from the terrorists – the creators chose the tactic to repost statuses of Russian pro-terrorist users containing propaganda and misleading information.

On August 5, 2014, influential page Euromaidan SOS published a poster to bring attention to the fake page. Many users have submitted appeals to the Facebook abuse team but meanwhile the page is active as of July 13, 2014. Also, Pro-Ukrainian users publish warning messages on the wall of the fake page and in comments to each of its post.

The launch of such fake page might serve another evidence of the Russia informational war against Ukraine.

fake ato

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Russian terrorists acknowledged missile strike of the plane in Ukraine

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On July 18, 2014, Malaysia Airlines flight MH17 has crashed in Ukraine, on the border with Russia, with 298 people onboard. The investigation of the incident examines three main versions of the party responsible for the missile strike: Russian military, Ukrainian military, pro-Russian rebels/terrorists.

The investigators should draw their attention to the social media run by terrorists. In the early hours of the strike, the page devoted to the terrorists’ leader Strelkov (Girkin) informed that “rebels shot down Ukrainian AN-26 plane”. The footage added to the news showed the smoke of the crashed MH17.

In the aftermath, when it was clear that the target of the missile was a Malaysian passenger plane, the terrorists denounced news about shot of Ukrainian AN-26 plane and deleted it. Nevertheless, dozens users have captured screenshots of the news and published it. It might be used as an evidence of pro-Russian terrorists involvement into the biggest plane catastrophe of the recent ten years.

Later, terrorists published the news accusing Ukrainian military planes in shooting Malaysian MH17 down. The inconsistency of the coverage questions terrorists’ informational war. Also, Security Service of Ukraine has published  a phone conversation between terrorists discussing the crash of the plane. It identifies the names of those responsible for the missile strike.

Post by terrorists about the successfull missile strike of "Ukrainian" plane

Post by terrorists aboit the successfull missile strike of “Ukrainian” plane

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Россия нервничает в Вильнюсе из-за украинского венка

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21 червня 2014 року у Вільнюсі активісти з Німеччини, Литви та України поклали вінок та квіти під посольство РФ у Вільнюсі в пам’ять загиблих українців, загинувших під час російської агресії в Україні.

Охорона посольства  у грубій формі почала вимагати забратися від посольства і невдовзі викликала поліцію. Литовські поліцейські дружелюбно поставилися до учасників акції і виконали формальність – переписали паспортні дані двох учасників акції.

Акцію в Литві ініціював Тобіас Вейхманн, громадянин Німеччини, що проживає в Вільнюсі, створивши подію у Фейсбуці. Задля безпеки учасників, організатор не визначив точний час акції – учасникам пропонувалося приходити під посольства РФ в Литві у зручний для них час 21 червня 2014.

Вільнюс приєднався до глобальної акції покладання вінків до посольств РФ, яка відбувалася у багатьох країнах світу.

IMG_20140621_110224

Тобіас замовив вінок напередодні акції і заплатив власні гроші аби підтримати Україну. Фото – Віталій Мороз

Активісти поклали вінок під ворота посольства РФ в Литві

Активісти поклали вінок під ворота посольства РФ в Литві. Фото – Віталій Мороз

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Agenda setting in newsgathering during anti-government protests 2013-2014 in Ukraine. Segment 1 of my thesis

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Introduction (pp.8-9)

Alongside the work of professional journalists, the events in Ukraine showed a huge involvement of Internet users and media activists in reporting on the developments in the protests and the conflict with Russia. With the help of modern technologies, such as Twitter, Facebook, Ustream and YouTube, users provided evidence, shared impressions, helped in news gathering and distribution, coordinated efforts, and mobilized supporters for these causes. Social media became a hub for hundreds of grassroots initiatives that mobilized hundreds of thousands of active citizens across Ukraine and worldwide, interested in the Ukrainian events. The scale of such media activism could not be ignored by professional news organizations, and step-by-step they were accepting social media as a source in newsgathering.

The rise of social media use regarding the events in Ukraine showed remarkable numbers. Twitter,  an online social networking and microblogging service that enables users to send and read short, 140-character text messages called “tweets”, was the fastest way to learn news about the recent events in Ukraine.  In the period of February 10-March 12, 2014, 3,785,648 tweets with the hashtag #ukraine were written by users of Twitter. With the outbreak of the Crimean crisis, the interest in Ukraine on Twitter was comparable to the interest in the 86th Academy Awards ceremony.  Continue reading →

“We will never be brothers” – a poetry that sparked in the Internet in Ukraine and Russia

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Anastasiya Dmytruk, a Ukrainian poet, wrote a poetry in which she emotionally explained why Ukrainians will never treat Russians as “brothers” after Crimea invasion. The notion of “Slavic brotherhood” has been of the strongest myths in among Russians who claimed the unity among Russia, Ukraine and Belarus.

The original poetry was published in YouTube on March 19 and since then it received 1,712,000 views (as of May 20, 2014). Another version with a song performed by Lithuanian singers Virgis Pupšys,Jaronimas Milius,Kęstutis Nevulis,Gintautas Litinskas got 2,278 million views.

Russian users were outraged since the poetry affected their nationalistic feelings. Dozens of replies were published in YouTube, but none of them did not get more views as original one.

Anastasiya Dmytruk has recently published a book of poetries. Find her updates in Facebook – siadmytruk

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Defended: Master’s thesis about the role of social media during the protests in Ukraine

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On May 30, 2014, at Emerson College, Boston, I have defended my thesis titled Agenda setting in newsgathering during anti-government protests 2013-2014 in Ukraine. The impact of social media on news organizations. Chair – Prof. Melinda Robins, Ph.D., Graduate Program Director of Journalism Department at Emerson College.

I plan to publish it on this blog soon, now, please find the abstract:

Following the Orange revolution in 2004, popular protests of Ukrainian citizens in 2013-2014 for the second time in the last ten years altered the political regime in the country. In the battle against the corrupt government, protesters have demonstrated a sophisticated use of the Internet and social media tools in news dissemination and mobilization of activism. This study investigates another dimension of the protests – the media effects of social media on news organizations within the framework of agenda setting theory. How user-generated content influenced media coverage of the protests by professional news sites and which issues have been perceived as important for public awareness. Based on a case study of one of the leading news sites and a popular Facebook page initiative, I research the agenda setting on the mainstream media. 

defended

With Dr.Emmanuel Paraschos, Ph.D. and Prof. Melinda Robins, Ph.D., Graduate Program Director