Combating Information Warfare in Ukraine by Relearning Lessons about Peace Media

Author: Theo Dolan, March 14 2022 - As the horrific war in Ukraine rages, the international community is already considering how we have failed to learn lessons from previous conflicts to prevent the current violence. The same is true for how the information war has been waged in Ukraine. Despite many new features of the information war, such as heavy utilization of social media apps like TikTok and Telegram, we are still discovering some of the same lessons we've gathered from decades of social and behavior change communications (SBCC) work in the peacebuilding arena. By revisiting some of these lessons now, perhaps it can help those of us working with media and technology to create and disseminate communications campaigns that can support conflict resolution in Ukraine as well as building peace in other conflict-affected countries.

Flooding the Media Space

First it is important to note how Ukrainians of all kinds have captured global attention, effectively stealing the narrative away from the formidable disinformation capacities of the Russian government and its proxies. One way in which they've done this is by "flooding" social media channels with first-hand accounts of what's happening across Ukraine on a wide range of platforms, including more traditional apps like Twitter and Facebook (now Meta) as well as newer platforms like TikTok. While this appears to be an effective approach, it is not unlike how established behavior change communications organizations have emphasized frequency and repetition to instill key messages in target audiences. For example, many of us grew up watching Sesame Street, and Sesame Workshop has long been the gold standard for inculcating educational messages in young children through frequent and repetitive viewing. In the peacebuilding space, organizations like Search for Common Ground have produced multiple seasons of the episodic drama called The Team to consistently reach audiences in countries like Kenya and Myanmar to transform social attitudes and reduce violent behavior. So, even though the mediums have changed, the concept remains the same: more good (and factual) content can drown out bad (and fake) content.

The Power of Human Stories

Another key component of social media outreach has been the powerful use of human stories. Many stories have circulated on social media that show the courage and resilience of ordinary Ukrainians (in addition to the obvious leadership and bravery exhibited by President Zelensky). For example, multiple images have been shared of Ukrainian volunteer soldiers getting married while dressed in military uniforms. Other posts showed Ukrainian citizens offering a captured Russian solider food and tea and helping him call his family. Some stories are undoubtably fake, and any social media posts need to be viewed through a digital media literacy lens, but the fact is that human stories are powerful narratives.

Once again, compelling stories that show empathy and compassion among diverse individuals or groups - thereby humanizing an otherwise unfathomably brutal situation - represent a building block of behavior change communications programs that share a goal of preventing or resolving violent conflict. For example, the Salam Shabab reality TV show for Iraqi youth produced by the United States Institute of Peace with Iraqi production partners demonstrated how youth in war-torn Iraq could use stories to find commonality, and work together for peace, both during filming and in their everyday lives. Organizations such as Equal Access, PeaceTech Lab, Love Frankie and many others specialize in producing multi-media programs that demonstrate the vast potential for human stories to inspire peacebuilding.

Understanding the Audience

The information war in Ukraine also reinforces the importance of understanding the target audience, a third key component of SBCC. While English language social media posts from Ukraine helped galvanize European and North American citizens against the Russian invasion, it's reasonable to ask whether these messages escaped the usual echo chambers in which we often find ourselves trapped. But what if a massive shift in Russian public opinion could eventually change Putin’s stance on war? Although there was a small window to reach Russian citizens before Putin completely shut off independent media and began restricting social media platforms in Russia, there were attempts to reach Russian citizens who did not support the war. For example, President Zelensky broadcast a video appeal directly to the Russian people just days after the invasion began. Also, enterprising westerners posted anti-war news and information by accessing Moscow restaurant reviews on Google Maps. Perhaps more fundamentally, Ukrainians reached out to their friends and family in Russia to ask for help and compassion, although this exposed deep divides among family members.

The challenges of reaching targeted audiences have existed for years for organizations seeking to change attitudes and behaviors through television, radio and social media. Conducting audience research helps media professionals understand their audiences better, although it is both expensive and time consuming to gather and analyze this kind of data. But what if the more traditional methods of collecting audience data can be replicated or replaced using social media tools? Most social media platforms have strong built-in analytics, and custom tools like CrowdTangle and Tweetbeaver can monitor public posts on Facebook and Twitter respectively. In the peacebuilding community, BuildUp recently developed its own open-source social media monitoring tool called Phoenix to track digital threats. It's certainly possible that a combination of these tools could provide inexpensive and almost real-time data to help us understand how audiences use social media and how they consume narratives around peace and conflict.

Despite the speed and viral nature of social media and its use in information warfare in Ukraine, we don't have to reinvent the wheel when using media and communications to influence peacebuilding actors. We can draw on a wealth of peace media experience from knowledge sharing resources like DM&E for Peace. Yet, learning from experience does not preclude us from developing innovative approaches that match the evolution of technology tools and how people consume information. For example, researchers have proposed inoculation theory as a means of preventing disinformation from taking root by introducing people to weakened forms of false information to build up their resilience against it. To some extent, we saw this theory in practice prior to the war in Ukraine as western governments and President Zelensky warned against Russian narratives used to justify the war. In a similar way, we can also use digital storytelling and multi-media SBCC programs to not only build such digital resilience in audiences, but also produce and disseminate peaceful narratives that can overshadow hateful content and propaganda. By blending the old media approaches with the new, information warfare can be transformed into peaceful fare.

Image credit: Pixabay (CC BY-SA 2.0)

Disclamer: These views are the views of the author and not necessarily of FHI 360.

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