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In the new podcast, we talked about how Russian propaganda works in Poland with an emphasis on social media. WithGivi Gigitashvili– our interlocutor, we referred to the latest narratives appearing in connection with the war waged by Russia in Ukraine and discussed ways to verify the content appearing on the Internet.

During the "Strengthening the Capacity to Counter Disinformation" project, our interlocutor, Dr. Pavlo Kolotvin was responsible for monitoring and analyzing news appearing in Russian mainstream online media in the context of Poland. Due to the current political situation and Russia's aggression against Ukraine, we also asked our guest about the narratives built in the Russian information space about Ukraine and whether it was possible to predict the coming war on the basis of the monitoring conducted.

On 9 May 2017, Vladimir Putin signed an Executive Order on the “2017-2030 Strategy for the Development of an Information Society in the Russian Federation.” The Strategy’s principal goal mentioned in the document is “to create conditions for the formation of a knowledge society in the Russian Federation.” It can be inferred that Russia is preparing for a total information warfare with the world, which is supposed to take many years, and the defensive aspect of this warfare will be its crucial role.

So far, the most popular social network in Ukraine has been VKontakte, followed by Facebook, which shared its position with Odnoklassniki in certain ranking lists. Imposing sectoral sanctions on Russian entities was not motivated by social pressure. Although the political aspect is important, the major reason was economy and security, and the decision was supposed to impact the aggressor state financially and prevent its enterprises to make money on the Ukrainian market. However, there is a range of serious threats for the Ukrainian state resulting from this decision.

Since the turn of 2019 and 2020, the problem of the COVID-19 epidemic has been widely commented on by the public. New publications on various aspects related to the coronavirus are constantly appearing in the information space. For the purposes of the report: ‘COVID-19 vaccines in Polish- and Russian-language online media outlets: specifics and correlation between them in Polish and Russian information spaces’, selected online media were monitored to examine the exact subject matter of the published articles.

The activity of Kremlin propaganda centres and the associated state structures clearly indicates that the coming months will see an escalation of actions hostile to Poland in the information space of Poland and its neighbours and allies from NATO. The context of the current geopolitical considerations suggests that apart from strictly disinformation actions: a) components making them appear real (organisation of real events / actions) and b) operational activity of Russian services (political, organisational and financial support for certain structures, entities and individuals as well as intensified recruitment of collaborators and expansion of pro-Russian networks in Poland, which are aimed at reinforcing the influence on the Polish political class and the Polish society) will be strengthened in coordination with them.

In recent months, the Center for Propaganda and Disinformation Analysis has been monitoring selected Polish and Russian online media for information on the coronavirus vaccine. In the first part of the report: “COVID-19 vaccines in Polish- and Russian-language online media outlets: specifics and correlation between them in Polish and Russian information spaces”, the situation in Polish cyberspace in the period: 10.05-04.07.2021 was analyzed.

Przedstawiamy nowe raporty, które są wynikiem monitoringu rosyjskiej oraz białoruskiej przestrzeni informacyjnej w ramach projektu „Wzmacnianie zdolności do zwalczania dezinformacji”. W efekcie analiz przeprowadzonych na podstawie danych zgromadzonych we wrześniu i październiku 2021 r. powstały kolejne, dwumiesięczne raporty cząstkowe. Badania wybranych mediów online zostały przeprowadzone dzięki wsparciu National Endowment for Democracy. 

Jakie są najważniejsze wnioski wynikające z monitoringu przeprowadzonego we wrześniu i październiku 2021 r.? 

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In an interview with the analyst Palina Shcherbava, we discuss the results of the monitoring of the Belarusian information space, which we carried out as part of the project"Strengthening the Capacity to Counter Disinformation" (May-December 2021). Taking into account the recent political situation, in particular the war in Ukraine, we have once again raised the topic of propaganda and disinformation appearing in the Belarusian online media. 

We publish the latest partial reports developed under the project "Strengthening the Capacity to Counter Disinformation”. They are the result of the monitoring of the Russian and Belarusian information space carried out in November and December 2021. The research of selected online media was carried out thanks to the support of the National Endowment for Democracy.

What can you learn from the results of the monitoring carried out in November and December 2021?

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In an interview with the analystEvija Djatkoviča, we discuss the results of monitoring the Russian information space, in particular focusing on the narratives that were built in the context of the Baltic states. We also discussed how the propaganda about Ukraine was built a few weeks before the start of the Russian aggression and how much space was devoted to Ukraine in the Russian media at that time.

The Center for Propaganda and Disinformation Analysis on 10.05-29.08.2021 monitored the Polish and Russian information space in the context of information on vaccines against COVID-19. The study was conducted using the Pulsar online information monitoring and analysis platform. For the sake of this analysis, 5 online mainstream media from Poland and Russia were selected. Polish media selection was based on the 2020 ranking of the most opinion-forming Internet portals, along with 5 additional information portals, bypassing the industry ones: onet.pl, wp.pl, interia.pl, wpolityce.pl and gazeta.pl. Russian media was selected on the basis of the 2020 ranking of the most opinion-forming Internet portals with nationwide coverage, available in the Pulsar media database: Rbc.ru, Gazeta.ru, Lenta.ru, Kp.ru and Fontanka.ru.