Faking Sense of War: The Russian Digital Propaganda Strategy

Public Guest Lecture by Dr. Boris Noordenbos, Universiteit van Amsterdam, on the Russian state’s use of digital media as a propaganda tool since the beginning of its full-scale war of aggression against Ukraine. The event is organized by DPL member Thomas Fritz Maier.

Ever since launching a full-scale war of aggression against its neighboring state Ukraine, the Russian Federation has significantly increased its efforts in the sphere of disinformation. In his guest lecture, “Faking Sense of War: The Russian Digital Propaganda Strategy”, Dr. Boris Noordenbos will zoom in on the Kremlin’s propaganda strategies beyond typical media channels such as television or the press. Noordenbos intends to shine light on the Russian state’s prevalent use of digital media platforms such as TikTok or the messenger service Telegram, by which it aims to not only reach users as recipients of information, but instead recruit them as disseminators and (pseudo-)creators of propagandistic content. Thereby the lecture also raises questions concerning a general understanding of the concept “propaganda”, as it had previously mainly been understood as a form of top-down communication with the purpose of political agitation.

Dr. Boris Noordenbos is an associate professor in the Department of Cultural Analysis at Universiteit van Amsterdam, The Netherlands. His current research project is titled “Conspiratorial Memory: Cultures of Suspicion in Post-Communist Eastern Europe”. Previously, he published his monograph “Post-Soviet Literature and the Search for a Russian Identity” (2016) with Palgrave MacMillan, as well as the edited volume “(Post-)Soviet Nostalgia: Confronting the Empire’s Legacy” (2019, Routledge) together with Otto Boele, Leiden University, and Ksenia Robbe, Groningen University.

The public lecture will take place in the auditorium of the Alte Universität Basel (Rheinsprung). Afterwards, a small reception will be held at which there will be further opportunity for conversation and exchange. The lecture will be held in English.

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