monitoring of the topic of disinformation
“Propagandists could change the narrative every day, but they understand perfectly well that they themselves will be responsible for the consequences,” said media expert and director of the Baltic Internet Policy Initiative Mikhail Doroshevich in an interview with the Russian Service of Radio LRT.
This week, after the massive shelling of Ukrainian territory by Russian missiles, the world was informed about the explosions in the Polish village of Przewodów, which killed two people.
Przewodów is located literally 10 km from the Ukrainian border. The preliminary investigation showed that these were Ukrainian air defense missiles fired by the Ukrainian military to shoot down a Russian missile, which means that the explosion in Poland was an accident, not a deliberate attack.
Russian propaganda is keeping this incident as silent as possible, as are Belarusian state media. Not a single TV channel has even mentioned the withdrawal of Russian troops from Kherson in a week; people in Belarus may think that Russian troops are still holding the Ukrainian regional center.
The very fact that key moments are being hushed up by Russian and Belarusian state propaganda is a good sign; it means that media workers understand the inevitability of what is happening and are starting to think, and maybe even be afraid.
– Let’s start with the missile crash in a Polish village. Why are Russian media practically not commenting on this incident, because in the narrative of Russian propaganda this is great news to rejoice about?
– We do not know the degree of readiness of Russian propagandists for such situations, we do not know if they have a manual, but we will assume that some recommendations apply to each specific problem; probably, in this situation there was a recommendation not to comment on what happened.
– How should we treat the restrained reactions in Belarusian state media?
– I think there are no clear recommendations for action here. Accordingly, this should be an initiative of specific people who should be ready to take responsibility. The situation is currently developing in such a way that we must be ready to take responsibility for responsibility. Often, bureaucrats in such conditions of uncertainty tend not to take responsibility and show initiative if there are no clear recommendations on what to do. It is better to do nothing.
– It turns out that propagandists are in a more difficult situation than independent journalists.
– In this case, I agree with you, because the whole point of independent media is that they can express their point of view, regardless of the position of the authorities, since independent media are based on facts. In the case of state propaganda, everything is very strictly regulated.
Now state propaganda is actively cultivating nostalgia for the Soviet Union. It should be remembered that in the Soviet Union, initiative was not welcomed, any actions were regulated. If we use IT terminology, then propagandists act according to a given algorithm, and if there is a failure in the operation, then additional artificial intelligence is required to adjust or configure this algorithm.
– Do you think there is such an algorithm of actions in case of similar incidents in Europe?
– Now is a very alarming and difficult situation, and it did not happen in 2022. I believe that it is necessary to remember that Russian aggression against neighboring countries began back in 2008 (on August 8, 2008, Russia invaded Georgia), and let’s not forget about February 2014 (the annexation of Crimea by Russia). If we talk about independent media, they do not need to chase speculative news. Speaking about current events in Poland, everyone is waiting for specific responses from the authorities, the results of the investigation.
– It is impossible not to remember the liberation of Kherson. Belarusians who get their information from TV probably still think that it is under occupation. Why didn’t Belarusian propagandists use the Russian legend about a planned retreat, but simply completely ignored this news?
– There is too much uncertainty now. Even taking into account the audience’s forgetfulness of recent events, you can’t change your position and rhetoric every day. Trust in state media is quite low, and this, by the way, also affects non-state media. The fact that state media follow instructions written in “guides”, disseminating false information, affects the entire media space, which leads to a drop in trust in non-state media.
– There is an opinion that after the protests of 2020, there are representatives of Russia in large Belarusian state media who softly monitor the information released, and sometimes directly influence the context. How true is this?
– You know, unfortunately, this looks extremely true. I don’t think it’s any specific person – for example, the deputy for ideology or a representative of the “propaganda ministry” – but overall, this story looks very real. I don’t think Belarusian state journalists it is necessary to coordinate each step with a “curator” or “coordinator”, but they are coordinated so that they move in parallel with the Russian state media courses – it is not necessary that this course be uniform.
Unfortunately, the problem of the Belarusian government, the management apparatus created over the past decades, is that this apparatus is not transparent, and the information we receive is quite dosed. All this affects the fact that the information we receive cannot be analyzed in order to understand the actions of the authorities. The actions of the authorities can be different, and if they do not have the task of informing citizens about their activities, it turns out that we can only guess whether they coordinate their activities with Russian propagandists or not. This, unfortunately, can only be an assumption, because, as I said earlier, the management process is not transparent.
