Trolls vs Elves in Ukraine's War - Fighting Disinformation with Interactive Documentary

乌克兰危机的开始可以追溯到2014年3月21日俄罗斯正式吞并克里米亚（Grant, 2015）。那时，俄罗斯的信息战运动已经进入了高级阶段，传播亲克里姆林宫的宣传，指责乌克兰政府是纳粹主义和法西斯主义。网络空间军事行动实验的证据可以追溯到20世纪90年代（布坎南，2017）。然而，在普京的总统任期内，俄罗斯成为网络战争行动中最多产的国家行动者之一（Aro, 2021）。随着巨魔的数量不断增加，反击开始只是时间问题。网络行动主义是网络空间的一种行动主义形式，对网络的发展至关重要（Levy, 1984），由来自Anonymous的黑客行动主义者推广（Coleman, 2014）。另一群网络战士处于这项研究的中心。2014年，为了应对乌克兰危机，网络精灵由不到20名联合创始人在立陶宛成立，并迅速在其他中东欧国家发展壮大。与匿名者相反，精灵在法律范围内运作。他们由三个操作小组组成：网络侦察兵调查和分析社交媒体上的内容；《西装精灵》的法律部门；以及模因战士，模因的创造者——这是对抗数量优势的克里姆林宫巨魔最有力的武器之一（Kleckova, 2022）。本研究将开发一种互动纪录片（i-doc，游戏和纪录片之间的协同作用）的实验形式，以探索虚假信息的兴起和斗争。通过制作一个基于网络的应用程序，致力于在乌克兰危机背景下普京的巨魔和网络精灵之间的战斗，它将研究i-doc在信息战中的作用，以及叙事艺术干预在引发变革方面的技术支持。

The beginning of the Ukrainian crisis dates back to 2014 when Russia formally annexed Crimea on the 21st of March (Grant, 2015). At that point, the Russian information warfare campaign was already in an advanced phase, spreading pro-Kremlin propaganda and accusing the Ukrainian government of Nazism and Fascism. Proof of experiments with military action in cyberspace dates back to the 1990s (Buchanan, 2017). However, under Putin's presidency, Russia became one of the most prolific state actors in cyberwar operations (Aro, 2021). With the number of trolls constantly on the rise, it was just a matter of time before a fightback began. Cyberactivism is a form of activism in cyberspace core to the development of the web (Levy, 1984), popularised by hacktivists from Anonymous (Coleman, 2014). Another group of cyberwarriors is at the centre of this research. Cyber Elves were founded by less than 20 co-founders in Lithuania in 2014, in response to the Ukraine crisis, and quickly grew to form legions in other CEE countries. As opposed to Anonymous, Elves operate within the scope of the law. They consist of three operating subgroups: Cyber Scouts investigating and analysing content on social media; the legal department of Elves in Suits; and Memetic Warriors, creators of memes - one of the most potent weapons against a numerically superior force of Kremlin trolls (Kleckova, 2022).The proposed study will develop an experimental form of the interactive documentary (i-doc, a synergy between a game and a documentary film) to explore the rise and struggle against disinformation. Through producing a web-based application dedicated to the fight between Putin's trolls and Cyber Elves in the context of the Ukrainian crisis, it will examine the role of the i-doc in the information war, and the technical affordances of narrative artistic interventions in their capacity to elicit change.