Adolescents, wartime divisive propaganda, and bullying: how are they related?
Main Article Content
Abstract
Relevance. The growing role of the information component in russia’s hybrid war against Ukraine and its use of divisive propaganda emphasize the urgent need to study its impact on adolescents, especially in the educational environment.
This article aims to answer the question of whether and from which channels adolescents are exposed to polarizing messages and whether such messages influence changes in school bullying.
Methods and methodology. The study consisted of three stages and aimed to assess the relationship between exposure to divisive messages and the formation of prejudices that can lead to bullying. Methods included desk research (content analysis of social media by media experts), a series of focus group interviews, and a national survey of students in grades 5-9 (n = 5,351).
Results. The content analysis showed that divisive messages about refugees, internally displaced persons (IDPs), and regional differences are predominantly spread through russian/pro-russian accounts. In contrast, language-based divisive messages often came from Ukrainian accounts. The focus groups identified TikTok and Instagram as the main channels adolescents are exposed to such messages. Respondents also reported that they had witnessed polarizing narratives being used as a pretext for bullying in real-life situations. The survey showed that 60.5% of students have been exposed to propaganda messages of division, primarily through social media (39%). According to Fisher’s angular transformation criterion, adolescents who were exposed to such messages were significantly more likely to agree with the negative stereotypes spread by propaganda (e.g., φemp.=12.043 for prejudice based on region of origin, φemp.=12.998 for language-related prejudice).
Conclusion. The results of the study confirm that propaganda divisive messages contributes to the spread of prejudice, which can lead to bullying based on differences in war-related experiences. The study emphasizes the need for media literacy programs to counteract the influence of propaganda and the role of parents as points of intervention to stop the influence of propaganda.
Downloads
Article Details
References
Anastasio, P. A., Rose, K. C., & Chapman, J. G. (2005). The divisive coverage effect: How media may cleave differences of opinion between social groups. Communication Research, 32(2), 171–192. https://doi.org/10.1177/0093650204273762
Babak, A., Matychak, T., Moroz, V., Puhach, M., Minich, R., Rybak, V., Yermolenko, V. … Shutov, R. (2017). Words and Wars: Ukraine facing Kremlin propaganda. Кyiv: КІС.
Bissell, K., & Parrott, S. (2013). Prejudice: The role of the media in the development of social bias. Journalism & Communication Monographs, 15(4), 219–270. https://doi.org/10.1177/1522637913504401
Blank, S. (2022). Russia, China, and information war against Ukraine. The Journal of East Asian Affairs, 35(2), 39–72.
Buturoiu, D. R., & Corbu, N. (2020). Exposure to hate speech in the digital age: Effects on stereotypes about Roma people. Journal of Media Research = Revista de Studii Media, 13, 5–26. https://doi.org/10.24193/jmr.37.1
CAT-UA. (2022). Dividing lines in Ukrainian society: Influence of mass discussions in social media. Retrieved from https://cat-ua.org/en/2023/03/16/ukrainians-afraid-of-russian-fakes-less-and-less-3/
Dovidio, J. F., Hewstone, M., Glick, P., & Esses, V. M. (2010). The SAGE handbook of prejudice, stereotyping and discrimination (1st ed.). SAGE Publications. https://doi.org/10.4135/9781446200919
Fishbein, M., & Ajzen, I. (1975). Belief, attitude, intention and behavior: An introduction to theory and research. Addison-Wesley.
Gaertner, S. L., Dovidio, J. F., Anastasio, P. A., Bachman, B. A., & Rust, M. C. (1993). The common ingroup identity model: Recategorization and the reduction of intergroup bias. European Review of Social Psychology, 4(1), 1–26. https://doi.org/10.1080/14792779343000004
Geissler, D., Bär, D., Pröllochs, N., & Feuerriegel, S. (2023). Russian propaganda on social media during the 2022 invasion of Ukraine. EPJ Data Science, 12(1), 35.
Golovchenko, Y., Buntain, C., Eady, G., Brown, M. A., & Tucker, J. A. (2020). Cross-platform state propaganda: Russian trolls on Twitter and YouTube during the 2016 U.S. Presidential Election. The International Journal of Press/Politics, 25(3), 357–389. https://doi.org/10.1177/1940161220912682
Gönültaş, S., & Mulvey, K. L. (2021). The role of immigration background, intergroup processes, and social-cognitive skills in bystanders’ responses to bias-based bullying toward immigrants during adolescence. Child Development, 92(3), e296–e316. https://doi.org/10.1111/cdev.13476
Komar, O. (2022). Soft power and propaganda in the Russian-Ukrainian war: Epistemological analysis. Almanac of Ukrainian Studies, 30, 82–88. https://doi.org/10.17721/2520-2626/2022.30.11
Krueger, J., & Clement, R. W. (1994). The truly false consensus effect: An ineradicable and egocentric bias in social perception. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 67(4), 596–610. https://doi.org/10.1037/0022-3514.67.4.596
Llewellyn, C., Cram, L., Hill, R. L., & Favero, A. (2019). For whom the bell trolls: Shifting troll behaviour in the Twitter Brexit debate. JCMS: Journal of Common Market Studies, 57(5), 1148–1164.
Mapes, N., White, A., Medury, R., & Dua, S. (2019). Divisive language and propaganda detection using multi-head attention transformers with deep learning BERT-based language models for binary classification. In Proceedings of the Second Workshop on Natural Language Processing for Internet Freedom: Censorship, Disinformation, and Propaganda (pp. 103–106). Hong Kong, China: Association for Computational Linguistics.
Mitchell et al. (2023). Social research on nationalism and patriotism. Retrieved from https://ratinggroup.ua
Oddo, J. (2011). War legitimation discourse: Representing ’us’ and ’them’ in four US presidential addresses. Discourse & Society, 22(3), 287–314. https://doi.org/10.1177/0957926510395442
Office of Public Affairs. (2018). Grand jury indicts thirteen Russian individuals and three Russian companies for scheme to interfere in the United States political system. United States Department of Justice. Retrieved from https://www.justice.gov/opa/pr/grand-jury-indicts-thirteen-russian-individuals-and-three-russian-companies-scheme-interfere
Olechowski, A. P., Wiśnicki, J., & Academy of International Relations and American Studies (Poland). (2023). Cognitive war in Ukraine. Polish Political Science, 52(2), 99–111. https://doi.org/10.15804/ppsy202359
Park, H. S., Klein, K. A., Smith, S., & Martell, D. (2009). Separating subjective norms, university descriptive and injunctive norms, and U.S. descriptive and injunctive norms for drinking behavior intentions. Health Communication, 24(8), 746–751. https://doi.org/10.1080/10410230903265912
Pfeifer, J. H., Ruble, D. N., Bachman, M. A., Alvarez, J. M., Cameron, J. A., & Fuligni, A. J. (2007). Social identities and intergroup bias in immigrant and nonimmigrant children. Developmental Psychology, 43(2), 496–507. https://doi.org/10.1037/0012-1649.43.2.496
Prentice, D. A., & Miller, D. T. (1993). Pluralistic ignorance and alcohol use on campus. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 64(2), 243–256. https://doi.org/10.1037/0022-3514.64.2.243
Reid, A. E., & Aiken, L. S. (2013). Correcting injunctive norm misperceptions motivates behavior change. Health Psychology: The Official Journal of the Division of Health Psychology, American Psychological Association, 32(5), 551–560. https://doi.org/10.1037/a0028140
Sarsfield, T. (2019). Information war 2022: Musings of a senior officer on Russian information warfare and recent events. Military Review, 99(4), 126–132.
Sillanpää, A. (2017). Executive summary: The Moldovan information environment, hostile narratives, and their ramifications (рр. 4–8). NATO Strategic Communications Centre of Excellence.
Simchon, A., Brady, W. J., & Van Bavel, J. J. (2022). Troll and divide: The language of online polarization. PNAS Nexus, 1(1), pgac019. https://doi.org/10.1093/pnasnexus/pgac019
Sotsiolohichne doslidzhennіa do Dnіa Nezalezhnosti: Uіavlennіa pro patriotyzm ta maіbutnіe Ukrainy (16–20 serpnіa 2023) [Sociological research for Independence Day: Perceptions of patriotism and the future of Ukraine (August 16–20, 2023)]. Ratinggroup.ua. Retrieved from https://ratinggroup.ua/research/ukraine/soc_olog_chne_dosl_dzhennya_do_dnya_nezalezhno_uyavlennya_pro_patr_otizm_ta_maybutn_ukra_ni_16-20_se.html (in Ukrainian)
Soral, W., Bilewicz, M., & Winiewski, M. (2017). Exposure to hate speech increases prejudice through desensitization. Aggressive Behavior, 44(2), 136–146. https://doi.org/10.1002/ab.21737
Sparkman, G., Geiger, N., & Weber, E. U. (2022). Americans experience a false social reality by underestimating popular climate policy support by nearly half. Nature Communications, 13(1). https://doi.org/10.1038/s41467-022-32412-y
Stewart, L. G., Arif, A., & Starbird, K. (2018). Examining trolls and polarization with a retweet network.
Yuskiv, K. (2020). Naratyvy rosiiskoi propahandy v Ukraini [Russian propaganda narratives in Ulraine]. Psykholohiia i suspilstvo, 30, 31. https://doi.org/10.30970/PPS.2020.30.31 (in Ukrainian)
Watts, C. (2017). Disinformation: A primer in Russian active measures and influence campaigns. Statement prepared for the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence, 30 March 2017. Retrieved from https://www.intelligence.senate.gov/sites/default/files/documents/os-cwatts-033017.pdf
Zakharchenko, A. (2022). PR-message analysis as a new method for the quantitative and qualitative communication campaign study. Information & Media, 93, 42–61. https://doi.org/10.15388/Im.2022.93.60
Zakharchenko, А. (2024). Stratehii rosiiskoi propahandy: yak tse u nykh pratsiuie [Russian Propaganda Strategies: How They Work.]. Українська правда. Retrieved from https://www.pravda.com.ua/columns/2024/04/1/7449107/ (in Ukrainian)