Info victory in the "hybrid war" is no less important than the military one. In the third year of war, Ukrainian state with relative success is defending its basic "information area". However, achievements seem to be significantly smaller there where they are most acutely needed. In particular, in the Donbas, where it is essential to promote Ukrainian information product on a temporarily occupied territory and counter the Russia’s and pro-Russian militants’ information aggression in the territory controlled by Kyiv.
Info victory in the “hybrid war” is no less important than the military one. In the third year of war, Ukrainian state with relative success is defending its basic “information area”. However, achievements seem to be significantly smaller there where they are most acutely needed. In particular, in the Donbas, where it is essential to promote Ukrainian information product on a temporarily occupied territory and counter the Russia’s and pro-Russian militants’ information aggression in the territory controlled by Kyiv.
The fact, that a main burden of sharing the objective data and exposing Russian propaganda in the region is on the non-profit media and some international media while the state has withdrawn itself from more active support of this process, is an indirect evidence of this. In particular, “local” topics are highlighted the Ukrainian BBC, Radio Free Europe / Radio Liberty and other offices, “Public Television”, “Public Radio” Donetsk Institute of Information (DII) projects and a number of independent online publications, whose audience, however, is relatively small, work in the region.
However, such media audience is gradually increasing. This was discussed at the presentation of the annual DII report held recently in Kyiv at #MediaHub. According to the report, in particular, during 2016 the popularity of the “News of Donbass” site has increased by 10%, “Public TV of Donbass” – by 35%, “Donetsk truth” – by 5%.
TV remains to play a leading role. A number of media projects that were organized or supported by the DII continues to have the overall daily audience of nearly 3 million people. Among them, about 1.5 million is a local audience of public and private broadcasting companies that broadcast information product “Public TV of Donbass”, and another 1 million watching the Hromadske programs on Donetsk regional TV and radio broadcast, which is operating from the territory controlled by Kyiv.
However, nearly 5 million people watched “Public TV of Donbass” clips on the YouTube channel during the year. In 2016, “Public TV of Donbass” became an independent broadcaster so that the DII would further focus on analytical work, says the report. The main trends of a research should be the following:
a) Donbass’s information reintegration,
b) examination of the infrastructure facilities broadcasting use
c) monitoring of the authorities’ statements on the temporarily occupied areas.
One of the joint efforts of civil society activists and media people’s result is that Donetsk National University was named after Vasyl Stus (this idea had been put forward repeatedly, but before the Revolution of Dignity it was blocked by the regional authorities).
Also, this year, it was managed to create an updated TV studio in Slaviansk and a news bureau in Mariupol, which prepares a weekly program precisely for the city residents. Journalists managed to establish an interactive relationship with residents from the temporarily occupied territories. However, broadcasting on temporarily occupied areas is able to be provided by the state only. Since, as the report states, the restoration of the telecommunication tower on Mount Karachun in Slaviansk was the main achievement in this direction, but this is not enough.
The state doesn’t pay enough attention to the funding and technical support of existing media, which were managed to develop in recent years by the efforts of concerned journalists and several international organizations’ donor support. In particular, the IRF supports the Donetsk Institute of Information within the “Initiative of think tanks in Ukraine”, implemented by the International Renaissance Foundation (IRF) in partnership with The Think Tank Fund (TTF) financially supported by the Embassy of Sweden in Ukraine.
Images: Donetsk Institute of Information
