Foreign Propaganda Research Articles

Китай накануне 20-го съезда КПК

In the last quarter of 2021, a number of important events that consolidated the previously outlined trends in China’s development took place but with new significant nuances. In early November, the 6th plenary session of the 19th CPC Central Committee was held in Beijing, at which, in the official interpretation of the Communist Party of China, the “third historic resolution” was adopted. In fact, it formalized Xi Jinping’s monopoly on political power on the eve of the 20th CPC Congress scheduled for autumn 2022, at which Xi is planned to be re-elected as the CPC General Secretary for a third term. In mid-November, an online Summit of Xi and Joe Biden took place, confirming the current course of both sides to develop relations with a “new bipolarity in the context of globalization” emerging around the Sino-American confrontation. In December, the white paper titled “China: Democracy That Works” was published in Beijing. In parallel with the increasing intensity and scale of China’s propaganda and diplomatic offensive, it revealed a new detail in Beijing’s approaches to bipolar confrontation with the United States – namely, the inclusion of the topic of “democracy” and “value orientations” of world development in the sphere of confrontation. New peculiarities have emerged in the economy. At the December economic meeting of the CPC Central Committee, the views of the Chinese leadership on the country’s near economic future were presented to the public much more cautiously than before. In Chinese foreign policy propaganda, the role of China’s main partner in the fight against American hegemony, through which Beijing seeks to strengthen the “Chinese pole” of the “new bipolarity”, is assigned to Russia. In addition to the growing volumes of economic and military cooperation and political interaction, Beijing counts on Moscow’s support in matters significant for active Chinese diplomacy in promoting Chinese ideas of democracy and the “Community of Common Destiny for Mankind” theory as the most important universal reference point in the world ideological and political space.

Fighting Fascist Spain: Worker Protest from the Printing PressWriting Revolution: Hispanic Anarchism in the United States

Fighting Fascist Spain: Worker Protest from the Printing PressWriting Revolution: Hispanic Anarchism in the United States

Microtargeted propaganda by foreign actors: An interdisciplinary exploration

This article discusses a problem that has received scant attention in literature: microtargeted propaganda by foreign actors. Microtargeting involves collecting information about people, and using that information to show them targeted political advertisements. Such microtargeting enables advertisers to target ads to specific groups of people, for instance people who visit certain websites, forums, or Facebook groups. This article focuses on one type of microtargeting: microtargeting by foreign actors. For example, Russia has targeted certain groups in the US with ads, aiming to sow discord. Foreign actors could also try to influence European elections, for instance by advertising in favour of a certain political party. Foreign propaganda possibilities existed before microtargeting. This article explores two questions. In what ways, if any, is microtargeted propaganda by foreign actors different from other foreign propaganda? What could lawmakers in Europe do to mitigate the risks of microtargeted propaganda?

Strategic Framing Matters But Varies: A Structural Topic Modeling Approach to Analyzing China’s Foreign Propaganda About the 2019 Hong Kong Protests on Twitter

Drawing upon the approach of strategic framing, this study investigated how China’s state-run media mobilize foreign propaganda machine and use specific patterns to describe the 2019 Hong Kong protests on Twitter. It also shed light on the heterogeneity of both production and reception of the strategic frames used by state media. Structural topic modeling was employed to analyze a large amount of Twitter content (i.e., 14,412 tweets) posted by 13 verified organizational accounts, and six strategic frames were identified as conflicts and violence, calling for stability and order, marginalizing protests, criticizing the West as accomplices, delegitimizing protests, and social and economic disruption. These frames highlighted insider–outsider and causes and consequences as two overarching communication strategies. The results also revealed that the bureaucratic rank of state media and the engagement rate of each tweet were closely associated with the content prevalence of various strategic frames. In addition to enhancing our understanding of the construction of “protest paradigm” against the social media context, these empirical findings uncover the often overlooked mobility and flexibility of China’s state media discourse as well as the communication ecology shaped and consolidated by the increasing importance state media communicators attach to online engagement metrics.

Performing National Identity in the Interwar Period: The Sarrasani Circus in Germany and Latin America

This article examines the production and promotion of popular entertainments by the German Sarrasani Circus during the interwar period and how they were used to establish specific national narratives in Germany and Latin America. Focusing particularly on its engagement of Lakota performers, it argues that the Circus acted as an active negotiator of national concerns within and beyond Germany’s borders, and presented the group as ‘familiar natives’ in order to appeal to local and national ideas of Germanness. At the same time, it shows that the performers pursued their own interests in becoming international and cosmopolitan performers, thereby challenging the assimilation forced upon their traditions and culture by institutions in the United States. Finally, it demonstrates how foreign propaganda built on the Circus’s national image in Latin America to restore Germany’s international relations after the First World War. Sabine Hanke is a lecturer in Modern History at the University of Duisberg-Essen. Her research examines the German and British interwar circus. She was recently awarded her PhD in cultural history, from which this article has evolved, at the University of Sheffield. A chapter based on her research is scheduled for publication in Circus Histories and Theories, ed. Nisha P.R. and Melon Dilip (Oxford University Press).

Questionably legal: Digital politics and foreign propaganda

ABSTRACT In this study, we map the legal work seven U.S. digital consultancies and public relations firms undertook across social media and digital platforms of behalf of four foreign governments. We find these firms used a range of different strategies on social and digital media, very few of which featured legally required disclosures linking the content to their country of origin. Firms targeted journalists and other elites, but exactly how is not clear. Our most powerful findings regard what is absent. Our study reveals as much about the inconsistencies and inadequacies of the current FARA disclosure process and gaps in tech firms’ ad archives as it does about the content and strategies of the messages themselves. We conclude with a series of recommendations for technology firms and the Department of Justice for enforcing FARA regulations as they relate to social and digital content.

Translation as cultural diplomacy: a Chinese perspective

ABSTRACT The People’s Republic of China, since its foundation in 1949, has been at the forefront of strategizing outward translation (translation of works for readers outside of China) as a means of cultural diplomacy. The concept ‘guojia fanyi shijian’ (literally, national translation practice) is being developed by Chinese scholars to analyze state-sponsored translation. This article provides a historical overview of China’s state-sponsored outward translation activities and aims to highlight the conundrum of deploying translation as a means of cultural diplomacy in the Chinese context. The close relationship between the concept of soft power and the Chinese propaganda system not only constrains the creativity and attractiveness of cultural resources, but also predisposes translation projects to prioritize the source culture over the target culture. Based on the possibility of extending cultural diplomacy beyond national interests, this article argues that the Chinese government’s use of translation for cultural diplomacy should draw insights from intercultural communication practices to reinvent the principle of ‘neiwai youbie’ (different approaches to domestic and foreign propaganda work). In particular, the growing international popularity of Chinese online literature, largely translated by fans, is a timely reminder for policymakers to reform their conventional translation policies with the aim of increasing soft power.

On the question about opposition to the information component aggression of the Russian Federation

Ukrainian law guarantees freedom of speech and expression. This is in line with international and regional instruments (Convention for the Protection of Human Rights and Fundamental Freedoms, International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, Declaration of Human Rights) to which Ukraine is a party. Unfortunately, Ukraine is no exception, due to the conflict with the Russian Federation. The Revolution of Dignity of 2014 and the subsequent illegal activities of the neighbouring state (annexation of Crimea, occupation of the territories in the South-East of Ukraine) affected the legislative and regulatory framework of Ukraine regarding freedom of speech and freedom of expression. In order to counter aggression, the state has adopted a number of laws aimed at counteracting foreign interference in broadcasting and ensuring Ukraine’s information sovereignty. The implementation of these laws has been criticized for being seen by NGOs as imposing restrictions on freedom of expression and expression. However, censorship and selfcensorship create another serious restriction on freedom of speech and the press. The Law on Transparency of Mass Media Ownership, adopted in 2015, provides for the disclosure of information on the owners of final beneficiaries (controllers), and in their absence – on all owners and members of a broadcasting organization or service provider. In 2019, Ukraine adopted a law on strengthening the role of the Ukrainian language as the state language, which provides for language quotas for the media. According to the Law on Language, only 10% of total film adaptations can be in a language other than Ukrainian. Ukraine has adopted several laws in the field of information management to counter foreign influence and propaganda. According to the report of the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe, for the period from January 1, 2017 to February 14, 2018, the State Committee banned 30 books published in the Russian Federation. Thus, for the first time faced with the need to wage an “invisible” war on the information front, Ukraine was forced to take seriously the regulation of the media and the market. By imposing a number of restrictions on a product that can shake sovereignty and increase the authority of the aggressor in the eyes of citizens, the legislator, guided by the needs of society, also contributes to the promotion of Ukrainian (for example, by introducing quotas).

РОЛЬ ПИСЬМА Л.Ф. ИЛЬИЧЕВА В ОРГАНИЗАЦИИ ВНЕШНЕПОЛИТИЧЕСКОЙ ПРОПАГАНДЫ НАКАНУНЕ ВЫСТАВКИ США В МОСКВЕ (1959 Г.)

The article considers one of the key documents on the prepara - tion of Soviet foreign policy propaganda for covering the American National Exhibition in Moscow in 1959 – a letter from the Head of the Department of Agitation and Propaganda of the Central Committee of the CPSU for the Union Republics, L.F. Ilyichev, sent to the Central Committee of the CPSU. The author introduces the previously unpublished full text of the archive docu- ment from the fund No. 5 of the Russian State Archive of Modern History, as well as later handwritten corrections with relevant comments and observa- tions. The paper analyzes the goals and objectives of the document and also provides an overview of the degree of current studying the issue of covering the American Exhibition in Moscow in domestic and foreign historiography at the present stage. In this research, the author comes to the conclusion that the Department of Agitation and Propaganda played one of the main roles in the organization of the exhibition coverage. The article traces the mechanism of implementation of the decisions taken in the field of propaganda and interac - tion with the Soviet media on the example of this document. The author points out an intermediary role of Agitprop in this mechanism: all the decisions, agreed with the Central Committee of the CPSU are assigned in the form of tasks to central newspapers, the TASS news agency, radio and television. The main goal pursued by Agitprop was to minimize the propaganda effect in the media field from the American Exhibition in Sokolniki and to attempt weaken - ing the interest of Soviet citizens in the event itself. The author also emphasizes the importance of corrections made to the document after typewriting, which meant reducing the sharp tone of the paper. In addition, the article remarks the role of a handwritten note on the organization of the Exhibition, made in the end of the document, as a form of reporting to the higher management for the events held at that time.

A Scientometric Analysis of Research Advances in China’s Eco-Translatology Studies (2008-2021)

Eco-translatology is an interdisciplinary study of ecology and translation. With the help of CiteSpace developed by Professor Chen Chaomei and other statistical tools, this paper draws a knowledge graph of journal papers in the CNKI database of eco-translatology from 2008 to 2021, aiming to vividly and intuitively show the general situation. These hot spots and evolving trends in eco-transla- tology studies are under widespread scrutiny and investigation by Chinese authors. By dissecting the distribution of papers by the year of publication, co-oc- currence keywords network, keyword betweenness centrality and the distribution of articles by institutions, the study has discovered that foreign propaganda translation and public signs translation are key research domains of eco-transla- tology, thus the interaction between Chinese authors and institutions in various institutions is generally presented.

Implementation and features of Soviet propaganda in Thailand in the Cold War period

This article deals with features of Soviet propaganda activities in the Cold War period in Thailand. After abrupt changes of the former allies foreign policy, the Soviet Union after the Great Patriotic War dramatically reviewed and corrected its international propaganda work concept. The main role of this new confrontation between ideological camps belonged to the media, which were aimed at international audience, and systematically implemented their state policy on the informational and psychological front. From the USSR side, this role was fulfilled by the Soviet Information Bureau (Sovinformburo, later - Novosty Press Agensy, APN). After the Second World War the USSR began influencing the foreign policy of Thailand. This kind of work was organized in the condition of Thai anticommunist propaganda. In the article the implementation process of Soviet propaganda activities and features of the Soviet propaganda in complicated circumstances in Thailand and its neighbors, based on archive materials, is considered. During this research also analyzed the reports of local office of Sovinformburo (APN) in Thailand; activities of the Soviet media, featured in the local Soviet media publications in Thailand such as the local version of the Soviet Union magazine, pamphlets of Sovinformburo (APN); legal documents from the Soviet side (resolutions of the USSRs Peoples Commissars related to the foreign propaganda activities), and from Thailand side (acts, resolutions and transcripts of the Royal Thai Governments meetings). The academic works related to Soviet propaganda activities in Russian, Thai and English languages are studied. It is found out that innovations and strategies of the Soviet propaganda and counterpropaganda changed along with the development of diplomatic relations with Thailand. Regime changes and domestic policy development significantly affected the work of Sovinformburo (APN.) In the conclusion, the implementation of Soviet propaganda in Thailand depended on both domestic and international factors, impacting the position of Thailand on the international arena and the stability of the authority. Implementation of Soviet propaganda in various periods took place along the complicated condition of political life in Thailand and ideological confrontation of these political systems.

Influencing overseas Chinese by tweets: text-images as the key tactic of Chinese propaganda.

The literature on China’s social media foreign propaganda mostly focuses on text-format contents in English, which may miss the real target and the tool for analysis. In this article, we traced 1256 Twitter accounts echoing China government’s #USAVirus propaganda before and after Twitter removed state-linked operations on June 12, 2020. The 3567 tweets with #USAVirus we collected, albeit many written in English, 74% of them attached with a lengthy simplified Chinese text-image. Distribution of the post-creation time fits the working-hour in China. Overall, 475 (37.8%) accounts we traced were later suspended after Twitter’s disclosure. Our dataset enables us to analyze why and why not Twitter suspends certain accounts. We apply the decision tree, random forest, and logit regression to explain the suspensions. All models suggest that the inclusion of a text-image is the most important predictor. The importance outweighs the number of followers, engagement, and the text content of the tweet. The prevalence of simplified Chinese text-images in the #USAVirus trend and their impact on Twitter account suspensions both evidence the importance of text-image in the study of state-led propaganda. Our result suggests the necessity of extracting and analyzing the content in the attached text-image.

Demonizing the enemy: the influence of Russian state-sponsored media on American audiences

ABSTRACT There is growing anxiety about the influence of international propaganda on public opinion. Under what conditions can countries shift foreign public opinion against an adversary? Does making people aware that news is coming from a foreign source mitigate its influence? I examine these questions in the context of Russian propaganda in the United States. I subject subgroups of Americans to an article from Russia Today (RT), a Russian international television network, criticizing the Ukrainian government. I vary whether audiences are aware of the message source, and/or the intentions, of the Russian-funded network. I show that exposure to information about Ukrainian human rights violations lowers Americans’ evaluations of Ukraine irrespective of source awareness – indicating that making people more aware of foreign propaganda does not attenuate its influence. The findings have important implications for understanding the micro-level effects of international propaganda and the effectiveness of counter-propaganda strategies.

The disconcerting potential of online disinformation: Persuasive effects of astroturfing comments and three strategies for inoculation against them

This study is the first to scrutinize the psychological effects of online astroturfing in the context of Russia’s digitally enabled foreign propaganda. Online astroturfing is a communicative strategy that uses websites, “sock puppets,” or social bots to create the false impression that a particular opinion has widespread public support. We exposed N = 2353 subjects to pro-Russian astroturfing comments and tested: (1) their effects on political opinions and opinion certainty and (2) the efficiency of three inoculation strategies to prevent these effects. All effects were investigated across three issues and from a short- and long-term perspective. Results show that astroturfing comments can indeed alter recipients’ opinions, and increase uncertainty, even when subjects are inoculated before exposure. We found exclusively short-term effects of only one inoculation strategy (refutational-same). As these findings imply, preemptive media literacy campaigns should deploy (1) continuous rather than one-time efforts and (2) issue specific rather than abstract inoculation messages.

Counteraction to propaganda activities of revolutionary organizations in the Russian Empire at the turn of the XIX–XX centuries

Introduction. Propaganda direction in the activities of Russian political organizations at the turn of the XIX–XX centuries played an important role in their struggle against the authorities and was one of the causes of the collapse of the Russian socio-political system. Materials and Methods. The methodological basis of this study is the historical-genetic method, as well as the principles of historicism and micro-history. Results. The main task of the study is to analyze the main activities of the authorities in the fight against anti-government propaganda carried out by opposition political organizations in the period under review. On the example of circulars and orders of local and Central authorities the review of the main directions of activity of revolutionary political organizations and counteraction to them by the provincial authorities and police are given. The growth of the propaganda activities of the revolutionary forces is noted in the early twentieth century, which was primarily due to the emergence of domestic centers for the dissemination of propaganda materials. There is also a complication of the functional, and as a consequence, the records of the provincial authorities in opposition to anti-government propaganda. Discussion and Conclusions. This study allows us to divide the fight against anti-government propaganda into two periods: the predominance of foreign propaganda centers and the predominance of local centers of agitation and propaganda. The coordination of the activity of the provincial civil authorities, the Police Department and Postal and Telegraph officials to prevent the propaganda activities of revolutionary organizations is noted. However, it is concluded that despite the measures taken, the authorities were unable to stop the flow of printed propaganda products, as the country did not solve the objective problems that created a fertile ground for the formation of the revolutionary movement in the Russian Empire.

Persuasive identities? German propaganda in Chile and Argentina during the first World War

ABSTRACT In Latin America, World War I was mainly perceived as a media event. The propaganda of the belligerents highly contributed to this massive medial outlet. Foreign propaganda did not only publicly debate the advantages and disadvantages of the Latin American States’ political and commercial relations with the conflict parties, but it also added a new dimension to the public discussion of (trans-)national identities, as war propaganda tended to take up ongoing intellectual debates, integrating them into their public narrations. I will demonstrate how German propaganda used different concepts of identity, belonging and difference in Chile and Argentina during WWI in order to establish a persuasive argumentative strategy, that linked diverse political articulations and voices.

“The News Weekly”: a case study of the Soviet foreign propaganda magazine missing in action

The article is devoted to the magazine “News”, which was launched to print in the USSR in English language in 1951 and was distributed in 80 countries by Stalin’s decision. The relevance of the work is due to the fact that this media, which played a prominent role in Soviet foreign policy propaganda, is currently not known even to specialists, and there is no scientifi c studies on this magazine. The study of information warfare technologies is important in analysing their methods in the period of their formation. Of particular importance are the studies of little-known Soviet foreign policy propaganda media, one of which is the magazine “News”. It was closed by a secret resolution of the Presidium of the Central Committee of the CPSU in late 1956 as a ‘publication that has exhausted its tasks.’ Sources are original copies of “News” in English and archival documents of the Central Committee of the CPSU, the USSR Foreign Ministry, the Council of Ministers of the USSR, declassifi ed after 1991, many of which are introduced into scientifi c circulation for the fi rst time.

The British Weekly: a case study of British propaganda to the Soviet Union during World War II

The research investigates a publishing history of the Britansky Souyznik (British Ally) weekly (further - British Weekly) in Russian language, which was published in the Soviet Union by the UK Ministry of Information in the Second World War years and to 1950. This newspaper published reports from fronts where British troops fought against Nazi Germany and its allies, articles on British-Soviet military cooperation, materials about British science, industry, agriculture, and transport, reports on people’s life in the UK, historical background of British Commonwealth countries, cultural and literature reviews. British Weekly circulation in the USSR was 50,000 copies. The main method used for the research was the study of the newspaper’s materials, as well as the propaganda concepts of its editorial board and their influence on the audience. The researched materials are from archives of the Soviet Foreign Ministry as well as of the UK Ministry of Information and Political Warfare Executive (1940-1945), declassified by the British Government only in 2002, on the basis of which an independent analysis is conducted. The British Weekly played a bright role in the formation of techniques and methods of British foreign policy propaganda to Soviet public opinion in 1942-1945. Results of the research indicates that the British government launched foreign policy propaganda to the USSR immediately after breaking-out of World War II and used the experience of the British Weekly for psychological warfare in the Cold War years.

Area Studies at the Modern University: Experience in Studying International Communication Strategies

In this paper, we show the importance of including the large corpus of scholarly, popular and media texts describing the experience of 20th-century Russian and Soviet Indologists in bachelor’s Asian studies programmes. We explain the significance of the practical work of Soviet Asian scholars on developing and implementing international communication strategies and practices and show that this work is topical and relevant for modern tertiary education. We emphasize the extensive experience accumulated by Russian Indologists in developing scenarios and models of interaction between Russia and Asian countries that take regional particularities into account. We examine the work of the Russian Indologist, scholar, journalist, publicist and professor Leonid Mitrokhin (1934-2002), winner of the Nehru Award (1985), who worked for over a decade in India and devoted his entire life to studying South and Central Asia. We analyse Leonid Mitrokhin’s key communicative practices, whose results are reflected in his monographs, popular books and articles. The results of our linguocultural study confirm the effectiveness of the implementation of friendly communication strategies in Indo-Soviet relations in the 1960s and 1970s. The case study of Leonid Mitrokhin’s work shows the broad range of professional competencies of Soviet Indologists, who had in-depth knowledge of the political and sociocultural makeup of South Asia, the systemic connections between individual social, economic and political groups and institutes, and the ethnopsychological, ethnocultural and religious particularities of interethnic communication. The knowledge and skills of Soviet Indologists allowed them to make accurate forecasts of the development of the political and economic situation in South Asia and neighbouring regions, promote communication, make expert assessments in key areas of interaction between the USSR and countries in the region, elaborate effective communication strategies, and shape a positive image of their country in the international arena. The study of the communication experience of Soviet Indologists shall help contemporary students to learn the methodology of area studies, develop their strategic thinking, expand their study and research interests, improve their knowledge of the region’s history and interregional relations, and learn the basics of foreign impact strategies and the practice of foreign propaganda in Asia.

МІЖНАРОДНИЙ ДОСВІД ФОРМУВАННЯ СТРАТЕГІЧНИХ КОМУНІКАЦІЙ

The problem of strategic communication research became well-spread only for the last two decades. The efficiency and effectiveness of such tools has promoted with the military in the political and administrative spheres in such countries: USA, China, Estonia and the EU and NATO. The experience of these countries and international organizations has been taken into account during considering the use of strategic communication tools in implementing government policies and development strategies. The purpose of the paper is to study the international experience of institutionalizing strategic communications and identify aspects of its adaptation in Ukraine.A result of studying foreign experience shows us, that public diplomacy, as a component of strategic communications is actively use in foreign and national policies. Due to this a separate organizational structures are created in a certain direction for a certain purpose.Public diplomacy is a new variant of influence, which has allowed to promote own values to foreign audiences. For today, public diplomacy and strategic communications are inalienable and effective mechanisms of foreign policy and national security of the leading countries of the world. The main tools of public diplomacy are: public events (visits, seminars, conferences, press conferences, public debates, different projects, researches, radio, television, film production, etc.), they convey the necessary information of the whole community. The development of strategic communications in intergovernmental association and organizations involves regulative, structural and organizational support for activities in this branch that promotes their institutionalization. For this goal, the individual activity are created, for example: Strategic Communications Centre of Excellence (NATO), The Arab and Eastern Strategic Communications (EU), Latin American Strategic Communications (China) they provided communication to support anti-terrorist operations and countering foreign propaganda and fake. The experience of Estonia is an important element in the development of strategic communications in Ukraine. In thin country the separate department of strategic communications created, coordinated by the Government Communications Bureau, which in fact is the so-called single center for the development of meanings, narratives and provides a “single voice” of the state for informing internal and external audiences. The foreign experience of implementation and use of strategic communications has been analyzed and the key feature of its functioning is the existence of a single management center and a system of interconnected regulatory documents in the form of concepts, doctrines, policies, directives, etc.Strategic communications as a scientific course and activity is still at the stage of comprehension of experience and look over of formal mechanisms of their implementation. This situation is favorable for Ukraine, it gives the opportunity to practice, formed on the basis of the existing experience of leading countries, as well as the EU and NATO.For Ukraine, the formation and development of strategic communications are relevant to the following areas of research: creating a systematic approach to strategic communications at the national level; improving the coordination mechanism of communication between different authorities (interagency communication); changing the approach from crisis (reactionary) risk management communications (proactive communication); providing professional training on strategic communications.