Information Wars in the Baltic States: Russia's Long Shadow

ISBN-13: 9783030999865 / Angielski / Twarda / 2022 / 313 str.

Spis treści

Chapter 1: Introduction

Part I: The Weight of History

Chapter 2: Echoes of the Past: Media and History in the Baltic Battlespace

Chapter 3: Russian Disinformation: The Forest Brothers, Baltic Resistance, and NATO

Part II: The Weight of Ethnicity

Chapter 4: Making Sense of Public Media in Times of Geo-Political Crisis: Latvian Public Media and their Ethno-Linguistic Majority and Minority Audiences

Chapter 5: Building Bridges: Estonian- and Russian-Speaking TV Audiences and the Value of Estonian Public Service Broadcasting, 2010–2020

Chapter 6: Building or Banning? Russian-Language TV in Latvia

Part III: The Digital Challenges

Chapter 7: Bots, Trolls, Elves, and the Information War in Lithuania: Theoretical Considerations and Practical Problems

Chapter 8: Robotrolling in the Baltic States

Part IV: The Responses

Chapter 9: Disinformation Analysis and Citizen Activism in the “Post-Truth” Era: The Case of DebunkEU.org

Chapter 10: The Perils of Defense in an Information War: Media, Minorities, and the Threat Next Door 

Chapter 11: NATO’s Response to Information Warfare Threats

Part V: The Complications

Chapter 12: “Let Them Flee to Sweden: There, Everyone Looks at Them More Politely”: Gay Propaganda and LGBT Rights in the Baltic States

Chapter 13: The Best of Enemies: Identity, Recursion, and the Convergence of Kremlin and Estonian Strategic Narratives in the Global Populist Discourse

Part VI: Epilogue

Chapter 14: Epilogue: Baltic Journalists Respond to Disinformation

O autorze

Janis Chakars is Associate Professor of Communication and Digital Media at Neumann University, USA.

Indra Ekmanis is Baltic Sea Fellow and Editor of the Baltic Initiative at the Foreign Policy Research Institute, USA.

Blurb

“Russia’s malign influence in Europe isn’t only visible in the military forces it has repeatedly sent across its neighbors borders. It is also evident in the information arena. This book shows how Russia has subverted media outlets, spreads disinformation, and promotes the Kremlin’s geopolitical interests. This book is crucial for understanding contemporary information warfare, the threat Russia poses, and how the Baltic states are responding.”
—Chris Miller, Assistant Professor, The Fletcher School, Tufts University, USA

“This timely volume explores how information warfare in the Baltic states could be a precursor to armed conflict. It shows how Russian disinformation targets different Baltic media markets and tests the effectiveness that various organizations, including the ‘elves’ of Debunk EU, state broadcasters in Russian, and the information warfare experts at NATO have used to blunt its impact. Required reading for understanding the information ‘battle space’ in Europe.”
—Mitchell A. Orenstein, Professor of Russian and East European Studies, University of Pennsylvania, USA

“This book is an exceptionally timely collection of analyses from journalists, academics, military and media experts, all steeped in Russia’s asymmetric information war.”
—Marco Werman, Journalist and Host of public radio's The World

This edited volume, featuring accomplished scholars, is about the information wars in the Baltic states, a battle that pits Russia against the West with Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania as sites of contention for great power politics. Chapters address responses from titular populations, local Russian speakers, national governments, activists, journalists, and NATO, as well as the impact of Russian foreign policy on media.

Janis Chakars is Associate Professor of Communication and Digital Media at Neumann University, USA.

Indra Ekmanis is Baltic Sea Fellow and Editor of the Baltic Initiative at the Foreign Policy Research Institute, USA.