Ben O'Loughlin will present a seminar this week at KU Leuven, Belgium, entitled Russia and the Disinformation Distraction. The paper is written with Prof. Alister Miskimmon and will be published later in 2017. Details:

Thursday 31 August 2017, 2-4 pm

Researcher’s Zone, SBIB, Faculty of Social Science

Attendance is open to all, please register by sending an e-mail to floor.keuleers@kuleuven.be

Russia and the Disinformation Distraction

Western leaders appear to be falling prey to a ‘propaganda panic’ that they are losing an information battle to Russia, as journalism, democracy and the liberal world order fall into crisis. Instead of seeking to explain how audiences in Ukraine, the EU and elsewhere are being persuaded or not by Russia and its bots, it is more helpful to understand how the communications of all actors emerge from identities, memories and expectations that are themselves rooted in longstanding narratives. Certainly new synthetic, hybrid tactics must be countered. But systematic analysis of Russian and Western narratives shows a more profound set of disagreements at play about the nature of world order.