As of February, 2024, the Russo-Ukrainian war is starting again for the third time, the synchronicity and asynchronicity of communication for people living in/with/between war(s) has been changing. The truth and lies we encounter and articulate get different weight, the said and not said get different meanings. One of the appearances of war is propaganda, but what and does it still capture something, is there something in it or does it crumble? We had a conversation with Dr. Anton Shekhovtsov on propaganda, its producers and reproducers, and how to, if at all, engage with it.
What is happening?
Katia Lysenko
As I was thinking how to begin, I asked myself, “what about propaganda am I interested in?” I will not ask what is propaganda, (by the way what is your working concept?), but rather what it does and is capable of doing, and what it needs to sustain itself. Could you bring a case from the current Russo-Ukrainian war where we can say—here it is?
Anton Shekhovtsov
Essentially, propaganda is a set of narratives, or it can be one single narrative, but usually it’s a set of narratives that is used by one stakeholder, which can be a person, a nation, a government, or some non-governmental force, to change the behavior of what they consider their “adversary” or “enemy” or any other entity that they want to change the behavior of, change their way of thinking. This is what propaganda is: not necessarily disinformation, just a set of narratives.
It’s very different from traditional diplomacy and soft power. If we’re talking about the current conflict, the Russian-Ukrainian war, I just read about a recent case which I found quite interesting. It was about the influence that one pro-Russian website had on the debate in the United States of America on Ukraine. The narrative was about Zelensky allegedly buying yachts with the money provided by the US for Ukraine’s fight; that narrative basically traveled from a fringe website to the statements made by American politicians and, essentially, that influenced the debate on Ukraine in the US. So this isn’t something very typical and this of course includes an element of disinformation, but sometimes propaganda can be without disinformation.
Katia Lysenko
Seeing the reactions of different people towards the war in Ukraine, I try to understand what propaganda can explain: actions, reactions, and what it not? Can propaganda actually serve as an explanation for something at all, and apparently what could be justified by the influence of propaganda?
Anton Shekhovtsov
Propaganda is not for explaining anything. As I said, propaganda is about compelling others to change their behaviour or way of thinking. So in this case that I referred to, it is part of a larger narrative that Ukraine is a corrupt country which is not worthy of Western support. Western support is the major factor in Ukraine’s resistance to the Russian invasion—in addition to the will of Ukrainians to resist, but without Western support, it is just not enough. The willingness alone is not enough. Russia is trying to undermine Western support, hence this narrative about Ukraine being allegedly very corrupt.
Katia Lysenko
Is there any necessary effect of something for it to be called propaganda? If I may paraphrase you, influencing people through the means of propaganda is not simply to convince, but to make them do or not do something, right? And so you kind of separate the conviction and the act, why so?
Anton Shekhovtsov
Sometimes we can see the effects of propaganda, sometimes it has long term effects that are not necessarily seen immediately, and sometimes it is inefficient. Let us look at propaganda urging people to give up smoking. One ad or one publication will not necessarily change the behavior of smokers, but it may have a cumulative effect, and eventually a person may give up smoking; or it may not. The same with political propaganda. For one person, one publication is probably not enough. It has to be repeated. The narrative has to come in different forms, very much like anti-smoking propaganda. Propaganda may come in different forms, using different media, and adapted for dissemination through different intermediaries: through television, through the Internet, through your social networks, your friends and acquaintances. In the end, you may change your mind on smoking or you may not.
Katia Lysenko
As you were talking about propaganda having a cumulative effect that may not lead to something, I was thinking of politics, or its certain form, and its hyperaccumulation through rhetorical repetitions. I’ve been thinking that propaganda is a human phenomenon. It could be somewhere near the two other human let’s call them capacities, politics and laughter. I then ask myself, “who talks in propaganda? Who produces and reproduces it, and what is the difference?”
Anton Shekhovtsov
I do not think that there is a clear difference between producing and reproducing propaganda. They all are the source of propaganda; if we are talking about politics, it might be a government, maybe the leadership of the country. It depends essentially on who is the main source of a crisis. If it is the leadership of a country, then in a crisis it tries to convince its enemy or some adversary. It may also want to convince their own society that the leadership’s actions are justified—that the crisis was caused by another side, not by us—this is the message that the government sends. It may also be repeated or reproduced in various forms, but also it is being reproduced by the media that it somehow controls through money and/or ideology in various other forms. But also this propaganda can be reproduced by people who actually believe it, and once they believe it to be shared by some other people, this becomes the reason why they reproduce it.
Katia Lysenko
Linkages between war and propaganda. How are they synchronized? Could we distinguish phases of propaganda in action as they are sometimes distinguished in war, like preparation, invasion, occupation? Could there be different propagandas as there are different wars—cold war, civil war—could we say that there is a cold or civil propaganda that arranges different warfares? Maybe there is also mismatch in some cases, like with a cold war but using hot war propaganda, like in the 1950s. The war of Russia on Ukraine has been called ‘hybrid’ since before 2022. Would you say that there is a specific kind of propaganda complementing the hybrid war? But even if it is an unproductive concept, which is what I believe it to be, have you noticed a different propaganda after the full-scale invasion? Is there a certain continuity, or is there a rupture that invoked a different kind of propaganda after 2022?
Anton Shekhovtsov
It is not the differences in various forms of propaganda, but about the narratives that may parallel particular activities, like those in physical life or in the kinetic war. Some main narratives before the full-scale invasion of Ukraine were similar. Also it depends on whom the propagandist is addressing. For example, in my classification, there are four major audiences of Russian political war or information war that it wages in relation to the invasion of Ukraine: Russian domestic audience, Ukraine itself, the West that needs to be persuaded to abandon support for Ukraine, and the Global South in general, which Russia wants to come to its own side, or at least not to provide support for Ukraine, which is quite scarce anyway. For each audience, Russia has some different narratives which may overlap. Sometimes they do not overlap and they usually follow the main narratives of why Russia started the war or the so-called “Special Military Operation.” Sometimes these narratives correspond to what is happening on the battlefield. For example, in the beginning of the full-scale invasion, Russia claimed that it was pursuing two objectives: denazification and demilitarization of Ukraine. But after a number of military successes of Ukraine on the battlefield and because of the Western military support for Ukraine, the narrative was changed a little bit: the Russian state claimed that it was not fighting against Ukraine but it was fighting against NATO. Propaganda is flexible—it has to be flexible in its attempts to convince.
Who Listens?
Katia Lysenko
Regarding the audiences of Russian propaganda, I understand that what is taken into account as a division are certain sentiments, discourses that affect their mood, so they require different versions of the same message (by “message,” I mean something that provokes an intended reaction). If you could agree, the messages directed at different audiences can tell us about these audiences or how they are perceived by Russia. I noticed from personal experience that they’re changing their messaging towards Ukraine with the full-scale invasion. I want to ask from the point of view of Russian propagandists, what is the propaganda directed at the occupied territories of Ukraine (since 2014)? Are they not still domestic and no longer Ukrainian? Who are they from Russia’s view point, as in, which audience are these people addressed? What about the locals themselves who produce or reproduce the propaganda?
Anton Shekhovtsov
It depends on the territory. For example, in Crimea and Sevastopol, they address the audience as a domestic audience; they have not considered those audiences as Ukrainian audiences since the annexation in 2014. This is something that they also tried to do in the newly occupied territories in the Kherson and Zaporizhzhia Oblasts, but that did not work as planned as far as I understand, so they changed it; they did the same thing in some occupied territories of the Donetsk and Luhansk Oblasts, the so-called ‘people republics’ that they addressed initially as not part of Russia in 2014-2021. Now, it has changed because they are now formally annexed by the Russian Federation, so they address them also as a domestic audience. But in the beginning Russian propaganda portrayed both the “Donetsk People’s Republic” and the “Lugansk People’s Republic” as separate states. This is despite the fact that, initially, it did not officially recognize them as independent states, which happened only in 2022. They probably could even see them somehow as the “true” Ukraine—a Ukraine that is friendly towards the Russian Federation.
Katia Lysenko
What about those who left Russia or remain, and are for many different reasons gathered under the umbrella Russian opposition? How are they addressed and what is the main message towards them?
Anton Shekhovtsov
The message towards those who left was quite clear from the very beginning: those people are traitors. Before the full-scale invasion of Ukraine, they were actually even encouraged to leave: Russian authorities were probably happy to get rid of potential troublemakers. Now it is more difficult because they need people to support both the economy and the war effort, so it is not very beneficial for Russia to make people leave and provide opportunities for this. But in fact many people who left Russia in 2022—especially after the start of the partial mobilization of military reservists—now returned to Russia because they could not recreate abroad the conditions of life that they enjoyed in Russia. Russian propaganda naturally used this fact to argue that some confused Russians realized that they were wrong to betray Mother Russia, repented and returned to their homeland.
Katia Lysenko
Whenever you mention stakeholders in your theory, it is not clear who are the stakeholders, what enables certain actors to acquire the validity of being a stakeholder, and what (maybe also something in common) do they have at stake? The stakeholders in Russia’s war on Ukraine: who are they and what is at stake?
Anton Shekhovtsov
Stakeholders are people with a particular interest: Russian officials, pro-regime journalists, various actors with a particular political interest.
Katia Lysenko
But you also distinguish strategic and tactical propaganda. Does it relate to the concepts of stakeholders? What kind of entity is able to articulate a political message and what structures does this entity need to transmit in order to sustain itself?
Anton Shekhovtsov
If we are talking about strategic narratives, strategic propaganda, strategic culture, then the main stakeholders who produce them are people who are directly engaged in the conflict, provided the strategic foundation for the conflict, produced these strategic narratives. But then you have many other people around who are also stakeholders, like pro-regime media activists, editors and managers of various TV channels, and pro-war bloggers who produce tactical narratives.
Or they can reproduce strategic narratives, or create tactical narratives to justify the strategic narratives. The latter reflect the long term visions of the leadership of a particular country about the conflict, the crisis. Usually they are quite coherent—it does not mean that they are right, but they are coherent.
Tactical narratives can be either coherent or incoherent because the aim of their existence is just to support strategic narratives. Unlike strategic narratives, they emerge, disappear and sometimes re-emerge or do not. For example, a strategic Russian narrative is that Ukraine cannot be part of the Western world. Then you have smaller, tactical narratives to support this claim: that Ukraine is corrupt (“Zelensky is buying yachts using the money of American taxpayers”) or it is run by Nazis. There can be many tactical narratives and there can be different combinations of those. Even Putin himself, who is the major source of coherent strategic narratives on Ukraine, may also be a source of contradictory tactical narratives. For example, at one instance, he would claim that Ukraine was a failed state with no ideology, and, on another occasion, he would say that Ukraine was ideologically fascist. This is clearly a contradiction, but these are just tactical narratives and nobody really cares about their coherence—they just need to support the strategic narrative that Ukraine is not part of the West.
What to Do?
Katia Lysenko
In regard to the propaganda thought of as disinformation and the campaign to counteract it, I think whether the information, facts, etc. are not overestimated in such a conception. What is the linkage between knowing (in our case, being informed) and action? In relation to the information politics of a state and the stakeholders responsible for it, can you see some normative distinctions?
Anton Shekhovtsov
Disinformation is an intentional spread of false information. It is not necessarily malign, however, and one of the non-malign forms of disinformation is satirical websites such as The Onion. The website produces satirical fake news—they are political in form but have a satirical effect in order to ridicule particular socio-political developments. But everybody knows that this is satirical disinformation. However, malign forms of disinformation may and usually do become part of propaganda and are used to mislead people. Again this is to compel the audience to change their opinions, to change their behavior.
But propaganda does not only rely on disinformation and can also rely on truthful information that is manipulated or exploited in a way that would change or that would aim to change the behaviour or the way of thinking of the audience.
Katia Lysenko
Is there a distinction between counter-propaganda and the campaign against disinformation? I think whether there is a normative implication of one being negative and the other positive…
Anton Shekhovtsov
Counter-propaganda is just a competing narrative or a competing set of narratives. For example, one major strategic narrative of the Russian Federation is that Ukraine is not part of the West. The Ukrainian strategic narrative is that Ukraine is part of the West. You can also have a counter-narrative and counter-propaganda from the Western side saying that if Ukraine chooses to be part of the West, then it is part of the West—it is a sovereign decision of a sovereign country. If we produce and use this strategic narrative, that would be counter-propaganda to what Russia is saying. As for the campaigns to fight disinformation, this is different in a way—it is mostly about fact-checking and countering false or manipulated information. These campaigns rarely produce their own narratives—they just usually say that those disinformation narratives are false.
Katia Lysenko
In counter propaganda, it seems hard to find which one provokes which. I would not put Russia as the one that others respond to, or even if they are, from the side of Russia, the narrative that Ukraine is not part of the West is already reactionary, as many narratives are. And you have just said “counterproductive,” relating to this—what to do? How to influence not meaning (only) rhetorical techniques, rather do politics with people relatives, friends affected by propaganda being their friend or relative?
Anton Shekhovtsov
We are all affected by propaganda.
Katia Lysenko
That’s why I’m asking you. Because it is often these people-zombies, stupid, contaminated with propaganda etc. (in its original framing—propaganda fidei—the idea was exactly transmission—the effect was considered to be secondary, passive recipient), who reproduce xenophobic statements because of emotional and/or physically affections. What do we do and where does it possibly lead us? Do we (re)produce propaganda by thinking like this? Do we have to coexist? How do we speak with each other at all?
Anton Shekhovtsov
I do not, unfortunately, have an answer to this question. Propaganda wants to influence our way of thinking, and if propagandists fill the information space with enough narratives to sustain their line, it is very likely that we will choose to believe in a particular range of ideas. Often it is not about facts but about feelings. For example, when they say that Ukraine is part of the Russian world-both of these entities “Russian world” and “Ukraine” are imagined communities. Every nation is an imagined community; it is not a physical entity. We cannot classify it using the physical characteristics. When we say that Ukraine is part of the West-the “West” is also an imagined community, it has no physical characteristics. Then you simply choose to believe what is closer to your own understanding of the world, your worldview depending on whether you are more Russian leaning or even authoritarian leaning, or whether you are more pro-democratic, pro-liberal, or something else. So we just choose to believe what we want to believe or something which relates to our other views of the world and how the world should function. And when we choose to believe in one particular bigger picture, we are most likely to trust-under the influence of propaganda or not-smaller strokes, smaller narratives that complement and endorse that bigger picture.
Katia Lysenko
If I understood you correctly, you mean like the main principle is to believe what you believe in and amplify your propaganda through this belief instead of counteracting the propaganda of the other, right?
Anton Shekhovtsov
As humans, we prefer other people to agree with us, and we generally dislike people who disagree with us. By repeating or reproducing particular narratives that are a part of our individual bigger picture, we try to convince other people to come to our side, to support our worldview. Because the more people support our worldview, the stronger that worldview appears, the more self-confident we are. This is how religions-traditional or political-work.
You are never satisfied with believing in your own individual god, you are always interested in convincing others to believe in that god. Because otherwise, if you think that only you know this god who is only believed by you, then it is not really an omnipotent deity. Then you have a problem with immortality that a belief in your god should promise—can that god secure your immortality if no-one else believes in them? No, this is not how it works. We want others to believe in the same deity. This is how we strengthen our worldview.
Katia Lysenko
Let me disagree, or let me better amplify my propaganda. At the same time, propaganda, lies, and discussions o may turn into violence or you don’t look at it like this? I mean, is all propaganda innocent or is there something that it is not? Do you still see some kind of differences between different beliefs?
Anton Shekhovtsov
Obviously there are different beliefs and there are differences between them, but they are just beliefs. Again, if we are talking about communities or national communities, they are all imagined communities anyway, and we choose to believe in one or another interpretation of those communities. But you also asked about violence—propaganda may lead to physical violence, that is for sure. And we see how propaganda actually sustains Russian support for the war against Ukraine. But it is not the major objective of propaganda to produce violence. Propaganda is about persuasion, it is about changing your opinions. Of course, propaganda may convince some people to try to change opinions and worldviews of other people through violence. For example, to bring Ukrainians into the Russian sphere of influence. This may be done by violence, by war. But this is not the major objective of propaganda as such.
Katia Lysenko
And to finish, I wanted to ask you about the work with propaganda right now, in December 2023. As I am trying to approach it with thought, I always have it present in my mind that we are at war, that it is going on now, and that is not a reflection from my part but a huge factor influencing what and how to think of propaganda. Do you think that with the changing political situation, we can still choose a side without distancing ourselves from a critical approach to propaganda? Could you share your personal reflections on your dual or even triple role as scholar, analyst, I believe as I do, in war? How do you manage this both epistemologically and politically? How do you work?
Anton Shekhovtsov
As I said, we all have our worldviews, and we want other people to agree with our worldviews, because we want to sustain and reinforce them. In our lives, we try to do this through different means. These may involve talking to other people, writing, civil society work—there is a range of various means or instruments that are available to us.
Sometimes our choice of what to believe in is not very clear, because in many cases we are born into a particular community with certain beliefs and certain opinions, so, at the very least, initially, we accept—often unconsciously—the worldviews that are necessary to become and remain part of the community we are born into. Then there are differences between strengths of traditional religious and political persuasions. From what I experienced, there are more people who have changed their political beliefs in comparison to those who have changed their traditional religious beliefs.
I do believe that we should take sides in political conflicts, but also I understand that we cannot always take sides. We only take sides in crises or in conflicts which have direct relation to us. We are physically unable-as humans, as animals-to be concerned with every crisis that is happening in the world. For example, for us Europeans, the crises and conflicts that are happening in Latin America are quite far away; we are usually not taking sides there. We are not even thinking about them; they do not concern us. They are very distant, they do not appear in our social media bubbles. Of course, there are people who would take sides even in those distant conflicts because of ideology or some form of relation, but usually Europeans do not care. But then the West and, more recently, Ukraine tried to explain to the Global South the necessity of supporting Ukraine in its defensive war against Russia. So we want the Global South in general and Latin America in particular to take sides, and we want them to side with us. But should we be surprised when they question our arguments? You do not care about our conflicts and crises, why should we care about yours? They do not affect us, why should we be bothered about your troubles, we feel no connection to any of the sides.
It is always an individual choice that we make for one or other reason to support a particular side of the conflict, and this happens only if we, to a certain degree, care. If we do not, no propaganda will have an effect on us, we are often immune to things that have no relation to our core beliefs and worldviews.
Katia Lysenko
So everyone should be bothered with “their” conflicts, and as there are more and more conflicts for every audience, there will be no one immune to propaganda left.