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Recent developments seem to have accelerated an ongoing repression of free speech, as well as what looks like a largely successful effort to manipulate perceived reality; enough so to merit a dedicated post.
In these days of dramatic news from Ukraine, the information war is clearly directed at everyone. Propaganda is carried out by both sides. Images of fights, provocations, and resistance may be borrowed from any other conflict if they can be made to fit the narrative; each side exaggerates its military power and their troops' willingness to fight.
But such falsifications and self-aggrandisements are trivial compared to the years long propaganda campaign directed against a Western audience by Western powers themselves, channeled through mainstream media with good help from social media, to demonise Russia, make all their actions seem irrational, and their president appear as a madman and dictator, even long before the invasion began. The extent to which the population shares such views is indicative of the efficacy of Western propaganda. Of course the recent events are a complete PR disaster for Russia, but as Scott Ritter has suggested, they no longer care how they are perceived.
https://consortiumnews.com/2022/03/04/watch-cn-live-ukraine-update/
Yet, there are interesting nuances if we consider a wider perspective than media are usually prepared to offer, such as the US meddling in Ukraine in 2014, NATO expansion eastwards (although NATO spokespersons will tell us that each nation asks for membership on their own accord, no prodding needed, and that the alliance is purely defensive), the presence of the fascist or nazi Azov batallion, even Ukraine's ultimatum to either join NATO or acquire nuclear weapons, which are some of the real or perceived threats that Russia has long sought a guarantee against through diplomacy. The invasion is regrettable and illegal under those international laws Lavrov and Putin have previously held so high; it can also be seen as an act of desperation after years of regrettable and arrogant NATO policy.
This seems to be a point of no return, splitting the world into two blocs and a new cold war situation, as Mark Sleboda argues. Economic sanctions on both sides may cause a depression or recession in the global economy (on this point Michael Hudson has made a good analysis). As Russian media such as RT and Sputnik are being shut down on the major Western platforms, Russia has shut down BBC and other Western media, as well as their own independent media. The repression against war protestors is severe. This may just be the beginning and, as Sleboda suggests, we may see a total splintering of the internet into Chinese, Russian, Western (perhaps even American and European), and Arabic local nets where we can all live happily in our narrow reality-tunnels unexposed to what people in other parts of the world are thinking.
https://thegrayzone.com/2022/03/04/war-ukraine-unipolar-world/
As Joe Lauria points out, the Western audience (especially those who have restricted their news diet to corporate media) have been given a deceptive view of Ukraine by the omission of some crucial facts from recent years: News media leave out the US role in the 2014 coup, the eight years of civil war in the Donbass region against russian speakers, and the role played by (neo-)nazis in the coup, and ever after.
https://consortiumnews.com/2022/04/18/information-warfare-from-pre-history-to-ukraine/
As Lauria also writes, information warfare is war, and the point is to win. The current conflict in Ukraine is the first major war in the era of social media. Apart from bots and troll farms, regular social media users become, as Lauria puts it, "individual propagandists" furthering the official deceptions:
Social media has allow[ed] citizens to enter the fray, many of whom have been turned into individual propagandists regurgitating official deceptions from either side of a war. Social media helps propaganda spread faster than radio, television or newspapers every could.
But since social media are largely Silicon Valley enterprises with ties to US intelligence agencies and government, we should expect only one type of grass roots propaganda emerging as proponents of the other side (and probably even peace activists) are rapidly kicked out. And that, of course, is exactly what is happening. Again, I must agree with Lauria:
It has become very difficult to understand how Russia is conducting its information warfare because the English language RT television network and Sputnik radio have been banned in the West.
Still, it may be possible to find some true Russia apologists online who are not yet blocked in the West. They may give a very skewed version of what is going on; in other words, precisely as Western media but with the opposite sign.
Herman and Chomsky's Manufacturing Consent was written in the late 1980's, and they have found no reason to update it since then. Their model is still valid and their examples easily recognisable, just change the names of the journalists and the countries involved. American press (and in geopolitical matters, by extention, all Western mainstream media) is still as loyal as ever to government and corporations, applying completely different standards in reporting on events depending on whether they occur in client states or in hostile states. Some victims are worthy, others are not. Worthy victims fall under enemy fire, their suffering is exposed in graphic detail, their fate is properly mourned. Unworthy victims don't fit the story and are best not spoken about. If some fact is inconvenient it is not reported. If a convenient fact is missing altogether it can be cooked up. In this centralisation of media, and shutting out of foreign perspectives and domestic dissidents, the flow of information is choked. The society as a whole takes a step closer to totalitarianism.
The current shutting down of other nations' voices is as regrettable as it is dangerous. It leaves the general population ignorant and, even worse, also appears to limit the understanding of the political class of what motivates other nations. In the best case scenario the conflict is soon over, sanctions lifted, and media access restored everywhere, but that doesn't seem likely to happen anytime soon.
Part eleven (internet censorship)
Part twelve (conspiratorial thinking)
Part thirteen (psychology of propaganda)
Part fourteen (above)
The Oxymoronist Media Guide is licensed under CC BY-NC-ND 4.0
This part first published on March 5, 2022. Update: April 18.