Zusammenfassung: This book explores the discursive dimension of Russia's invasion of Ukraine. It analyzes how political leaders, mass media, social media, and ordinary people in Ukraine, Russia, the United States, the United Kingdom, and France discuss the war. War propaganda and counterpropaganda structure discourses about the invasion, strengthening post-truth conditions. The book highlights the consequences of the growing distrust in the institutional truth-teller, mass media. Russia's invasion of Ukraine is the first social media war. Social media became the principal source of information about the invasion. The rise of digital media did not change the tendency of the discourses about war to be territorially segregated according to national boundaries. Nationalization of discourses about war continues to prevail over their globalization. The corpora containing more than 180 million words in four languages inform the analysis. The data was collected during the first year and a half of Russia's all-out war in Ukraine. Dr. Anton Oleinik is a professor of sociology who taught in Canada (Memorial University of Newfoundland, St. John's), Kazakstan (Academy of Public Administration, Astana), Mongolia (National University of Mongolia, Ulaanbaatar) and Russia (Smolny College, St. Petersburg). His areas of expertise are political sociology, social data science, text-as-data, content analysis and mixed methods research. He previously authored Building Ukraine from Within: A Sociological, Institutional and Economic Analysis of a Nation-State in the Making, The Invisible Hand of Power: An Economic Theory of Gatekeeping, Market as a Weapon: The Socio-Economic Machinery of Dominance in Russia and Organized Crime, Prison and Post-Soviet Societies

​This book explores the discursive dimension of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. It analyzes how political leaders, mass media, social media, and ordinary people in Ukraine, Russia, the United States, the United Kingdom, and France discuss the war. War propaganda and counterpropaganda structure discourses about the invasion, strengthening post-truth conditions. The book highlights the consequences of the growing distrust in the institutional truth-teller, mass media. Russia’s invasion of Ukraine is the first social media war. Social media became the principal source of information about the invasion. The rise of digital media did not change the tendency of the discourses about war to be territorially segregated according to national boundaries. Nationalization of discourses about war continues to prevail over their globalization. The corpora containing more than 180 million words in four languages inform the analysis. The data was collected during the first year and a half of Russia’s all-out war in Ukraine.

Beyond the Euromaidan examines the prospects for advancing reform in Ukraine in the wake of the February 2014 Euromaidan revolution and Russian invasion. It examines six crucial areas where reform is needed: deep internal identity divisions, corruption, the constitution, the judiciary, plutocratic "oligarchs," and the economy. On each of these topics, the book provides one chapter that focuses on Ukraine's own experience and one chapter that examines the issue in the broader context of international practice. Placing Ukraine in comparative perspective shows that many of the country's problems are not unique and that other countries have been able to address many of the issues currently confronting Ukraine. As with the constitution, there are no easy answers, but careful analysis shows that some solutions are better than others. Ultimately, the authors propose a series of reforms that can help Ukraine make the best of a bad situation. The book stresses the need to focus on reforms that might not have immediate effect, but that comparative experience shows can solve fundamental contextual challenges. Finally, the book shows that pressures from outside Ukraine can have a strong positive influence on reform efforts inside the country.

A large-scale empirical investigation into the frequency and accuracy of media coverage of public policy.

Through the prism of the first comprehensive account of RT, the Kremlin's primary tool of foreign propaganda, Russia, Disinformation and the Liberal Order sheds new light on the provenance and nature of disinformation's threat to democracy. Interrogating the communications strategies pursued by authoritarian states and grassroots populist movements, the book reveals the interlinked nature of today's global media-politics pathologies. Stephen Hutchings, Vera Tolz, Precious Chatterje-Doody, Rhys Crilley, and Marie Gillespie provide a systematic investigation into RT's history, institutional culture, and journalistic ethos; its activities across multiple languages and media platforms; its audience-targeting strategies and audiences' engagements with it; and its response to the war in Ukraine and associated bans on the network. The authors' analysis challenges commonplace notions of disinformation as something that Russia brings to the West, where passive publics are duped by the Kremlin's communications machine, and reveals the reciprocal processes through which Russia and disinformation infiltrate and challenge the liberal order. Russia, Disinformation and the Liberal Order provides provocative insights into the nature and extent of the challenge that Russia's propaganda operation poses to the West. The authors contend that the challenge will be met only if liberals reflect on liberalism's own internal tensions and blind spots and defend the values of open-minded impartiality.

Historically, Donald Trump will be remembered as the first American president to be impeached twice and indicted. He fed the grotesque myth that the election was stolen and summoned his supporters to storm Congress on 6 January 2021 in a bid to thwart the certification of Joe Biden's U.S. presidential election victory. This volume vividly recounts the dramatic narrative of the January 6 Coup in America and how close we came to losing U.S. democracy. For anyone seeking a comprehensive and multidisciplinary global overview of democracy, an astute analysis of the forces that drive the dominance of the (neo)liberal paradigm of the last decades should look no further than this volume. Yet the volume takes the issue further by vigorously documenting the decline of the U.S. treaty process (America’s dysfunctional diplomacy and the doctrine of unpredictability). There is an urgent need for a massive infusion of strategic support for democracy in the United States. Because come 2024 or thereafter an unfinished work might drag American democracy to a dangerous inflection point. Trump (who has a complete hold on the Republican party, still has a stranglehold on the MAGA base no matter what he does, was instrumental to the breaking of U.S. diplomacy. Undermining the democratic legitimacy of International Law adversely affected U.S. foreign policy. Some federal and lower courts in the judiciary of the United States pose a real threat to Americans’ democracy as well. To that end, when ‘the principle of truth’ loses its relevance and meaning as benchmarks for appraisals and decisions, and becomes a harmful tool for willful propaganda. Everybody should be worried about U.S. democracy. A "real" crisis is coming! U.S. Democracy is at a breaking point. Like a giant modern mirror standing behind democracy itself, this book is a citizen's guide to saving U.S. Democracy. Expertly drawn on global and regional examples and current literature, the volume closes a gap in the multidisciplinary field. Quite useful as a valuable resource as it helps us understand the shifting Trump agenda in diverse areas. Essential reference across a range of subjects, bringing together contributions from scholars, and policymakers alike. This extraordinarily well-researched and practically crafted, culture-inclusive text could not be more relevant or timelier. It is a must for everyone. This volume will help to shape the political landscape of the 21st century and will remain a vital source of inspiration for modern-day scholars and political activists.

A fascinating, bottom-up exploration of contemporary Russian politics that sheds new light on why Putin’s grip on power is more fragile than we think “Putin v. the People wrestles with perhaps the central conundrum of contemporary Russia: the endurance of support for Putin amid deepening disillusionment with the present and pessimism about the future.”—Daniel Beer, The Guardian What do ordinary Russians think of Putin? Who are his supporters? And why might their support now be faltering? Alive with the voices and experiences of ordinary Russians and elites alike, Sam Greene and Graeme Robertson craft a compellingly original account of contemporary Russian politics. Telling the story of Putin’s rule through pivotal episodes such as the aftermath of the "For Fair Elections" protests, the annexation of Crimea, and the War in Eastern Ukraine, Greene and Robertson draw on interviews, surveys, social media data, and leaked documents to reveal how hard Putin has to work to maintain broad popular support, while exposing the changing tactics that the Kremlin has used to bolster his popularity. Unearthing the ambitions, emotions, and divisions that fuel Russian politics, this book illuminates the crossroads to which Putin has led his country and shows why his rule is more fragile than it appears.

In sum, by showing how and why local regional disputes quickly develop into global crises through the paired power of historical memory and time-space compression, Near Abroad reshapes our understanding of the current conflict raging in the center of the Eurasian landmass and international politics as a whole.

The trinity of government, military and publics has been drawn together into immediate and unpredictable relationships in a "new media ecology" that has ushered in new asymmetries in the waging of war and terror. To help us understand these new relationships, Andrew Hoskins and Ben O'Loughlin here provide a timely, comprehensive and highly readable survey of the field of war and media. War is diffused through a complex mesh of our everyday media. Paradoxically, this both facilitates and contains the presence and power of enemies near and far. The conventions of so-called traditional warfare have been splintered by the availability and connectivity of the principal locus of war today: the electronic and digital media. Hoskins and O'Loughlin identify and illuminate the conditions of what they term "diffused war" and the new challenges it raises for the actors who wage and counter warfare, for their agents and mechanisms of the new media and for mass publics. This book offers an invaluable review of the key literature and presents a fresh approach to the understanding of the dynamic relationships between war and media. It will be welcomed by a broad range of students taking courses on war and media and related modules, especially in media, communication and cultural studies, politics and international relations, sociology, journalism, and security studies.