2024 KU Security Conference Panel 3: The War, Disinformation, and Global Influence Campaigns

The War, Disinformation, and Global Influence Campaigns
Panelists: Dr. Anton Shirikov, Dr. Rebecca Johnston, and Dr. Kat Romanova.
Moderator: Dr. Mahir Ibrahimov

Dr. Anon Shikov began the discussion by noting that the Kremlin’s propaganda falsifies history, appealing to the collective memory and reframing current events. It undermines alternative views and polarizes and weakens its adversaries by creating confusion and disinformation. He explained how Russian propaganda becomes more effective when it aligns with people's existing beliefs and is delivered through trusted sources. It creates new narratives that exploit beliefs already engrained in the target audience. Politicians and influential media personalities can amplify and transmit propaganda to their audiences because they find it useful for their own purposes, they are not necessarily pro-Russian. These figures make the propaganda seem more trustworthy. Dr. Shirikov demonstrated how news agencies can spread disinformation by publishing articles written without access to reliable sources on the ground.

Dr. Shirikov also provided examples of Russian propaganda's persuasiveness during the 2020 US election and the conflict in Ukraine. He focused on conditions under which the audience became more receptive, such as plausibility and trustworthiness, deconstructing the methods used by the Russian propaganda and presented statistics on disinformation deception percentage in Slovakia, Chechia, and Poland, and statistics on belief in propaganda worldwide. He said the main thing we can do to fight Russian propaganda is to focus on eliminating unhealthy incentives, reducing polarization, and working on editorial standards.

Dr. Rebecca Johnston discussed how Russia uses cultural production to create an informational environment that is conducive to facilitating military success in Ukraine. She deconstructed how a videogame funded by the Russian government creates an operative framework that alters the players’ understanding of reality in the context of cultural production. She paid close attention to Russia’s post-Soviet national security strategies and traditional values as they have changed over time and how cultural production is linked to and has helped manifest these strategies.

She discussed epistemic frames in videogames, arguing that the Russian government does something similar with cultural production to control reality and shift the narratives and understanding of its citizens. She noted that unlike with propaganda, it is less important that the audience believe the narratives, and more that they understand the boundaries of public discourse in which they are allowed to operate.

She also examined how the Russian government uses cultural institutions such as the Russian Ministry of Culture and its oversight of various cultural establishments to control and spread propaganda.

Dr. Kat Romonova discussed disinformation campaigns and conspiracy theories, presenting findings from a study on the correlation of conspiracy beliefs and radicalization, explicitly focusing on gender-threatening narratives. Her presentation looked at the specific psychological mechanisms used to weaponize disinformation as well as who is most vulnerable to viral disinformation.

She noted that authoritarian leaders, following Russia’s “disinformation playbook,” use social networks as a successful tool for their disinformation campaigns. She discussed the results of studies she conducted with colleagues that exemplified how conspiracy theories are largely used for disinformation campaigns. These studies looked at QAnon conspiracy theories and the conspiracy of LGBTQ contagion. They found a strong connection between fragile masculinity and radicalization including support for the use of military force. The gender-threatening conspiracies led to more fragile masculinity, which resulted in more support of war and authoritarian leadership. In general, even short-term exposure to conspiracy theories increased respondents’ level of radicalization. In the context of the Russo-Ukrainian war, those conspiracy theories are used by Russia as a tool for radicalization and mobilization.

The panelists also addressed the moderator's and audience questions. They discussed the importance of social media in the context of the war. Audience questions covered the use of conservative values and narratives by the Ministry of Culture to mobilize the population, future trends in influence campaigns, and historical aspects of influence campaigns and propaganda.
00:00 Introductory Remarks by Dr. Mahir Ibrahimov
4:33 Dr. Anton Shirikov
22:08 Dr. Rebecca Johnston
42:19 Dr. Kat Romanova
57:43 Moderator's Questions
1:07:45 Audience Questions