Representatives of various industries – from the media to the scientific and legal spheres – spent two days in Kyiv, immersed in discussions about digitalisation and its impact on world processes, the post-truth era, and methods of combating propaganda.
The director of the Ukrainian School of Political Studies Svitlana Matviienko, the coordinator of the Council of Europe for schools of political studies, Michael Remmert, and the programme director of the Ukrainian School of Political Studies, Uliana Poltavets, opened the first day of the seminar. The discussion platform began with reflections on the future of democracy.
Volodymyr Yermolenko, a senior lecturer at the National University of “Kyiv-Mohyla Academy” and director of European projects of the Internews-Ukraine NGO, noted that now it is impossible to answer unequivocally who will win in the coming decades – liberal democratic values or authoritarianism? World trends indicate the growing influence of the authoritarian management style.
According to Volodymyr Yermolenko, nowadays, it is unnecessary to kill millions of people to spread one’s power. We live in a world in which the spread of power is facilitated by media that generate content that is profitable for their owners in one way or another.
Olaf Steenfadt, director of the Journalists Trust Initiative of the international organisation Reporters Without Borders, also agreed on this point. According to him, the media as a business model has ceased functioning. Nowadays, media does not generate profit but is seen as a tool to influence people.
The impact of the digital age on the modern world was discussed during the second panel. Olga Aivazovska, head of the Board of the Civil Network “OPORA”, spoke about the methods of disinformation and propaganda during the elections, using the example of Ukraine. The expert emphasised: although this year’s elections in Ukraine were recognised as democratic, there was a dirty fight between the candidates. During election campaigns, such technologies as information manipulation and the production of “double candidates” were used.
According to Olga Aivazovska, it is straightforward to manipulate people who do not trust state institutions. Electoral technologies such as voter bribery are losing weight as the battle is now to influence opinions and beliefs.
Ivan Gomza, associate professor of the Master’s Programme in Public Policy and Governance at the Kyiv School of Economics, noted that the impact of digitalisation on the democratic process cannot yet be assessed unambiguously. On the one hand, it promotes the formation of cross-national communities, helps pro-democracy actors to coordinate efforts, and gives all people equal access to information and the opportunity to express themselves. On the other hand, due to digitalisation, society becomes segregated on a less noticeable scale and remains helpless against the manipulations of autonomous centres of power.
In addition, Yaroslav Vedmid, CEO of Postmen Digital Agency, emphasised that the digital era and, in particular, smartphones have changed the way media is consumed.
Accordingly, there are new ways of influencing people – bots and online opinion leaders in the form of bloggers and fake news that appeal to emotions and spread faster than facts. This is a new reality that we have created.
The topic of fake news continued to be discussed during the workshop of Olga Yurkova, co-founder of the Stop Fake organisation. Olga told the participants about the experience of exposing fakes in her project and discussed the challenges for democracy brought by the digital era.
The first day of the round table ended with a speech by Ukrainian journalist and TV presenter Yanina Sokolova. She presented the programme “Evening with Yanina Sokolova” – a project created to combat Russian propaganda. Yanina shared her team’s experience of best practices against propaganda, attracting a mass audience, and retaining meticulous viewers.
Countering informational propaganda became a topic for discussion on the second day of the round table. David Patrikarakos, a British journalist and author of the book “War in 140 Signs: How Social Media is Changing Conflicts in the 21st Century”, explained to the participants how propaganda, particularly Russian propaganda, came about and how it affects people today.
At the same time, propaganda has its influence in Ukraine because domestic journalists do not satisfy the audience’s needs, believes Andriy Kulykov, co-founder of Hromadske Radio.
In turn, cyber security expert and alumnus of the Ukrainian School of Political Studies Yehor Aushev explained why fake news is an effective weapon in spreading propaganda.
According to him, propaganda is based on fears and public beliefs. If a new story sounds plausible to people, they will not question it. We are doomed to live in a world of fakes; therefore, we must learn to expose them and form a critical attitude toward any information.
