This is a continuation of the publication “The Topic of Elections in Belarusian YouTube Channels”. The previous material covered the period from early May 2023 to the end of October 2023. Here we will look at new videos that were posted in November 2023.
Using social media monitoring platforms, 23 videos were collected in which the titles contained the topic of elections.
In total, these posts gathered less than 400,000 views.
The distribution of stories by election campaigns was as follows:
- Belarusian elections* – 13;
- elections in Ukraine – 6;
- elections for the Coordination Council (CC) – 4;
- elections in the Netherlands – 2;
- results of the presidential elections in Argentina – 1.
Three videos mentioned two electoral campaigns.
All stories about the elections in Ukraine, shown on YouTube channels of Belarusian media with state ownership, contained intentional false information, namely disinformation.
Regarding the results of the elections in the Dutch parliament on the ONT channel, it was said that Dilan Yeşilgöz-Zegerius lost because voters could not pronounce her name.
There was no logical sense in inventing disinformation about the reasons for the defeat of the party led by Dilan Yeşilgöz-Zegerius. Additionally, the presenter unnecessarily pointed out that the female politician was born in Turkey.
It is also worth discussing on which channels the Belarusian elections* were discussed. On four state channels – ATN: news of Belarus and the world, Telekanal ONT, CTVBY, Information Agency BelTA, and four non-state channels – Mirror, Radio Svaboda, Euroradio, and Strong News: Gomel, Belarus and the world.
In April this year, an updated Concept of National Security of the Republic of Belarus was published. An explanatory video:
In particular, as an innovation, it was proposed to establish the need for sociological monitoring of the citizens of the Republic of Belarus. Also, for the first time, the term “electoral sovereignty of the Republic of Belarus” was introduced.
And already in May 2023, the chairman of the CEC, Igor Karpenko, introduced it into operation:
Then the term was recalled at the end of August: “Electoral sovereignty and the protection of citizens’ rights in the digital environment to be discussed by CIS parliamentarians in Grodno”. And now, in November 2023, this term began to spread in Belarusian state media.
It can be assumed that in December 2023, the Belarusian propaganda ecosystem will produce even more appealing and explanatory electoral content, which will advocate participation in the elections*. Of course, it is of particular interest which electoral campaigns in the world will be used for comparison and possible promotion of disinformation narratives.
