In June, RMLN hosts Ramón Reichert from the University of Applied Arts in Vienna, who will give a lecture “Staging War: Information warfare on Telegram and TikTok during the Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.”
Lecture will be held in hybrid format June, 8 from 13.00 to 14.30 (Helsinki time). If you want to participate online, please leave your contact information here until June, 7 noon: registration form. If you want to participate offline, join us in Helsinki at the Aleksanteri Institute (Unioninkatu 40C).
About the lecture: Since Russia’s invasion of Ukraine in February 2022 we have been seeing the struggle of two opposing forms of strategic communication. On the one hand, the centrally controlled propaganda regime in Moscow. On the other hand, a grassroots movement in political communication: a variety of content (visual storytelling through photography, video, graphics, diagrams, and maps) from actors of different size that work together through a common goal and a common narrative. This research examines the different media strategies that are used in the context of visual, narrative, and technical-infrastructural (hashtags, trending topics, memes, and bots) ‘control’ of public opinion and collective memory. The lecture focuses on information warfare in Telegram and TikTok that take place during the ongoing Ukraine-Russia war. Today a constant war feed on social media and online-platforms has emerged. Civilians, combatants, and soldiers use cell phones to record war victims, torture and cruelty, troop movements, destroyed military equipment and bomb attacks and disseminate them on Telegram and TikTok channels.
Speaker’s bio: After studying philosophy, culture and media studies, Reichert worked as an associate professor at the Institute for Media Theory at the University of Art and Design Linz (2003-2009), as a research fellow at the International Research Center for Cultural Studies (IFK) in Vienna (2008-2009), as a visiting professor for film and media studies at the Institute for Theatre, Film and Media Studies at the University of Vienna (2009-2013). Since 2014 he has been editor-in-chief of the peer-reviewed journal Digital Culture & Society. His current research project “Visual Politics and Protest. Artistic Research Project on the visual framing of the Russia-Ukraine War on internet portals and social media” (2022-2024) deals with information warfare und visual politics on Telegram and TikTok during the Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. The project is based at the Department of Cultural Studies at the University of Applied Arts in Vienna.
Moderator: Dr Daria Gritsenko (University of Helsinki)
Photo by Антон Дмитриев on Unsplash