MESO-PERSPECTIVE: FROM COMMISSARS TO ‘SWITCHERS’—PRO-RUSSIAN INFLUENCE ON TELEGRAM
MESO-PERSPECTIVE: FROM COMMISSARS TO ‘SWITCHERS’—PRO-RUSSIAN INFLUENCE ON TELEGRAM

Author(s): Vera Michlin-Shapir
Subject(s): Media studies, Military policy, Political behavior, Politics and communication, Studies in violence and power, ICT Information and Communications Technologies, Peace and Conflict Studies, Russian Aggression against Ukraine
Published by: NATO Strategic Communications Centre of Excellence
Keywords: Pro-Russian Influence on Telegram; social media; war against Ukraine; Kherson; Antonov Airport; Bucha;
Summary/Abstract: After February 2022 the social media platform Telegram became ‘one of the most important informational vectors regarding the war’. The unprecedented spike in communications on the platform, which has been re-corded by ExTrac and discussed in the previous part, has given researchers a unique opportunity to examine Russia’s online media environment. While the ExTrac analysis focused on the quantitative increase of Telegram’s significance among Russian social media users, this part qualitatively analyses the content shared on the platform. It aims to shed light on the emergence of a new group of Russian online influencers—the so-called pro-war bloggers. Propelled into the limelight by a surge in online media, the Kremlin’s blocking of Western social media platforms, and increased demand from users for news about the war, these Telegram channels’ administrators formed an online eco-system which became instrumental in spreading pro-Russian narratives at home and abroad.

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