After Russia's media indoctrinated gandesk's identity and failed to support him for a few months in 2014, Russia's media were forced to take over.
Dr. Jon roozenbeek, a researcher at the University of Cambridge, believes that based on his analysis of media content for more than four years, this limited effort is likely to have little impact on the consciousness of Russian speaking Ukrainians in Donbas. For example, novorossiya, long promoted by Russian President Vladimir Putin, attempts to restore the terminology used to describe Donbas during the reign of Catherine the great. At that time, Donbas was temporarily located in the territory of the Russian Empire and claimed that the region belonged to Russia.
Research shows that novorossiya is hardly mentioned, and Russia's false information lacks any real "inner group" stories. In this regard, roozenbeek pointed out that this is the fundamental defect of any attempt to produce lasting division.
Almost all of Russia's propaganda work relies on portraying the leadership in Kiev as fascists to create what psychologists call "outside groups" to focus hostility on it.
However, as Russia shifted its war to Donbas, roozenbeek warned that it could turn to spreading novorossiya style propaganda narratives in the region and beyond, defending land grabs and war atrocities, and claiming that these actions were supported by the local people.
He called for a global pre emption to expose the deep-rooted claims of ideological projects such as novorossiya in the region and that the people of Donbas once believed in these myths. Otherwise, it is possible to accept this fallacy in the west through scholars and politicians who follow the Kremlin line.
Roozenbeek said: "For eight years, Russian propaganda has failed to provide a convincing alternative to Ukraine's statehood in eastern Ukraine. The Kremlin's decision to favor the hostility of external groups rather than the identity construction of internal groups and its huge overestimation of the extent to which its lies about non-existent Ukrainian 'Sith elements' promote Pro Russian sentiment is the key reason why the invasion has become a strategic and logistical disaster. If novorossiya's nonsense or His half baked ideological narrative began to spread in the west, so it may eventually be used to pressure Ukraine to give up large areas of territory, because a protracted war in Donbas led to the nervous collapse of the global society. "
In his doctoral research, roozenbeek used the "natural language processing" algorithm to sort out more than 85000 printed and online articles in 30 local and regional media in Lugansk and Donetsk from 2014 to 2017, and mapped the content pattern through the use of keywords and short words after Russia's first invasion of Ukraine.
Although half of the reports in the print media are still "business as usual" - sports, entertainment, etc. - about 36% of the reports are committed to "shaping identity" through publicity. Most of this was achieved by comparing it with World War II: the Donbas war was an attack by Ukrainian "Neo Nazis". Only one newspaper noticed Putin's novorossiya concept.
Roozenbeek said: "the print media in the region almost completely do not describe the identity of the internal group that regards Donbas as part of the 'Russian world'."
This model has been largely copied into the online news media. It can be said that these media are more fierce in trying to demonize the "foreign groups" Kiev government - including using English to try to publicize internationally - while ignoring the pro Russian "this is us" identity.
Roozenbeek found a small number of reports on the "patriotic" cultural activities organized by the Kremlin leadership in Lugansk, but he said that even here, the identity of internal groups is too lazy to assume.
All this has happened despite the fact that the "blueprint" strategy in Donbas clearly calls for cultivating a benevolent image of Russia by emphasizing the concept of "Russian world".
This strategy was leaked to German newspapers in 2016 and is widely believed to be the work of Vladislav Surkov, the former Kremlin propaganda director, who is often referred to as Putin's puppet master. It describes the necessity of constructing and promoting the ideology of "cultural sovereignty" in Donbas occupied by Russia, which can be used as a stepping stone for the country.
"Despite the importance attached to the construction of identity and ideology after the Russian backed takeover of Lugansk and Donetsk, including under the direction of the Kremlin, it rarely promotes identity within the group," roozenbeek said, "After 2014, the propaganda for establishing identity that I can find in Donbas is vague, ill conceived and soon forgotten... Putin seriously underestimated the power of Ukrainian national identity, even in Donbas, and overestimated the power of his propaganda machine in the occupied areas of Ukraine."
Roozenbeek's doctoral research was conducted from 2016 to 2020 and will be reflected in his forthcoming book influence, information and war in Ukraine. It is reported that the book will be published next year. It is part of the contemporary social problems series of the society for the psychology of social problems, and will be published by Cambridge University Press.