Investigating institutional counter-disinformation communications: A case study of the Russia-Ukraine war

复杂的外国虚假信息行动已成为现代军事冲突的一个关键特征，其中系统的信息操纵和虚假信息在追求军事和地缘政治目标方面发挥主导作用，以及常规的动态战斗。虽然国家宣传并不是一个新概念，但互联网的出现和社交媒体的兴起使恶意行为者能够绕过曾经充当政治对话主要守门人的传统媒体平台。外国虚假信息攻击的频率越来越高，突显了现代互联网时代自由民主国家的一个关键弱点，因为外国对手展示了他们用虚假叙述污染信息环境的能力，试图影响公众舆论和政策。因此，越来越迫切需要制定强有力的对策，以有效地打击虚假信息攻击。俄罗斯在2022年2月全面入侵乌克兰的同时，还发起了一场规模空前的虚假宣传活动，不仅针对乌克兰人民，还针对许多西方国家。这一虚假信息行动试图通过针对西方民众的英语传播，阻止国际社会对乌克兰的军事和人道主义支持。然而，尽管在战争开始前被认为是信息“弱者”，乌克兰政府揭穿俄罗斯虚假信息的努力被认为是非常有效的。社交媒体是乌克兰政府试图消除信息“战争迷雾”、诋毁俄罗斯叙事的一个关键平台。因此，冲突代表了一个重要的案例研究，通过它来了解虚假信息的传播，并学习如何迅速拒绝正在展开的虚假信息运动的教训。本研究项目的目的是了解在俄乌战争的头两年，乌克兰政府如何利用战略沟通来打击克里姆林宫的外国虚假信息行动。本研究将通过评估真实世界的反虚假信息策略以及战略传播研究的结果来推进虚假信息文献，以促进以证据为基础的反虚假信息措施的发展。本研究将采用纵向案例研究设计，以便随着时间的推移深入探索乌克兰的战略通信，捕捉入侵的初始反动通信以及常规和战术的整合。这个混合方法的案例研究将评估几个信息来源，包括新闻文章和社交媒体帖子，以及对信息战前线的反虚假信息专家的采访。研究结果将有助于创建反虚假信息反应类型，政府机构和政策制定者可以利用该类型制定应对未来外国虚假信息行动的战略和政策。

Sophisticated foreign disinformation operations have become a key feature of modern military conflicts, whereby systematic information manipulation and disinformation play a leading role in the pursuit of military and geopolitical objectives, alongside conventional kinetic combat. Although state propaganda is not a novel concept, the dawn of the internet and the rise of social media has enabled malign actors to bypass legacy media platforms which once acted as the primary gatekeepers of political dialogue. The increasing frequency of foreign disinformation attacks has highlighted a key vulnerability of liberal democracies in the modern internet era, as foreign adversaries demonstrate their ability to pollute the information environment with false narratives in an attempt to influence public opinion and policy. Thus, there is a growing and urgent need to develop robust countermeasures which can effectively combat disinformation attacks. The full-scale Russian invasion of Ukraine in February 2022 has been matched by a disinformation campaign of an unprecedented scale, directed not only at the people of Ukraine but also at many Western nations. The disinformation operation has sought to disincentivise international military and humanitarian support for Ukraine with English-language communications targeted at Western populations. However, despite being regarded as the information 'underdog' prior to the beginning of the war, the Ukrainian government's efforts to debunk Russian disinformation have been regarded as highly effective. Social media has represented a key platform through which the Ukrainian government has sought to dispel the information 'fog of war' and discredit Russian narratives. Therefore, the conflict represents a critical case study through which to understand the spread of disinformation and learn lessons about how unfolding disinformation campaigns can be rapidly rebuffed.The aim of this research project is to understand how the Ukrainian government utilised strategic communications to combat the Kremlin's foreign disinformation operation during the first two years of the Russia-Ukraine war. This research will advance the disinformation literature by evaluating a real-world counter-disinformation strategy alongside findings from strategic communication research in order to contribute towards the development of evidence-based counter-disinformation measures. This research will utilise a longitudinal case study design to allow for an in-depth exploration of Ukrainian strategic communications over time, capturing the initial reactionary communications to the invasion as well as the consolidation of routines and tactics. This mixed-methods case study will assess several information sources including news articles and social media posts, as well as interviews with counter-disinformation experts on the frontline of the information war. The findings will contribute to the creation of a counter-disinformation response typology which can be utilised by government institutions and policymakers to develop strategy and policy for countering future foreign disinformation operations.