{"id":68265,"date":"2017-03-02T15:54:17","date_gmt":"2017-03-02T15:54:17","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/uacrisis.org\/?p=53256"},"modified":"2017-03-02T17:51:17","modified_gmt":"2017-03-02T15:51:17","slug":"53256-contact-warside","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/uacrisis.org\/en\/53256-contact-warside","title":{"rendered":"The news from the other side of contact line: Institute of Mass Information analyzes content of media in the so called \u201cDPR\u201d and \u201cLPR\u201d"},"content":{"rendered":"

Institute of Mass Information monitored the content of news in eight online media of the occupied territories of Donbas. The experts analyzed whether the news contained hate speech and fakes and, secondly, the number of news and the tone of narration about authorities of Ukraine, Russian authorities and self-proclaimed authorities of the so-called republics. \u201cIn total, we analyzed nearly 2100 news published on January 17 \u2013 January 25,\u201d said Olena Golub, expert of the Institute of Mass Information, presenting the results of monitoring within a discussion \u201cInformation warfare in the Internet. Revealing and countering the Kremlin propaganda in Central and Eastern Europe\u201d held at Ukraine Crisis Media Center<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Nearly 11 per cent of news was very likely fake, as the source of the news is not mentioned, or the news came from sources, which are very close to the authorities of the so-called \u201crepublics\u201d. The experts, based on government-controlled territories, were unable to check whether the information about events which took place on the occupied territories was true. However, they easily identified as fakes several \u201cnews\u201d about events that allegedly happened in Ukraine. For instance, one of the news said that \u201cIn Kyiv region hunters fire on people using thermal imaging devices\u201d. \u201cIn fact, there was just one case when the hunters accidentally wounded their friend, who was also a hunter,\u201d explained Olena Golub. Another fake news said that people in Kyiv are burning books to heat their houses. The majority of news about Ukraine deals with criminal accidents. A lot of them are real facts, but they are described as typical everyday events.<\/p>\n

\u201cIn fact, there are fakes and there is \u201csemi-truth\u201d, and the latter is even more dangerous than fakes. On the one hand, it is not completely false information, but it is extremely manipulative,\u201d the expert noted.<\/p>\n

About 11 per cent of news contained hate speech. \u201cUkrainian media write about the self-proclaimed authorities unfriendly, but this attitude is not spread on all people living on the occupied territories. However, media on the occupied territories described the whole Ukrainian society like that. [\u2026] They emphasize that not only Ukrainian authorities are bad, but the whole society has a very negative attitude towards people who live on the uncontrolled territories, despite the fact that this is not true,\u201d she noted.<\/p>\n

The narratives in the news usually refrained those spread by Russian media, such as that the US would soon lift sanctions against Russia. \u201cIt was a week of Mr. Trump inauguration, and they wrote that the first thing he will do after inauguration would be lifting of sanctions against Russia,\u201d noted Olena Golub. The second widespread message said that Ukraine is not independent in its decisions, they use terms like \u201cpuppet regime\u201d and \u201cWestern curators\u201d. The media also actively promoted the narrative about discrimination of Russian-speaking population in the context of new draft laws about language, they even called it \u201ca genocide\u201d. The experts also noticed manipulative information about the Volyn tragedy, very similar to those published in Poland.<\/p>\n