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The Evolution in the Taliban’s Media Strategy
George Washington University, Program on Extremism (2022), 8 pp.
"In the mid-1990s, the Taliban took control of Afghanistan for the first time. They banned photography, TV, music, and all forms of entertainment. Soon after, the Taliban banned the internet in early 2001, and then-Foreign Minister Mawlavi Wakil Ahmad Muttawakil famously stated, “We want to establ
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Russia's Vigilante YouTube Stars: Digital Entrepreneurship and Heroic Masculinity in the Service of Flexible Authoritarianism
Europe-Asia Studies, volume 74, issue 7 (2022), pp. 1166-1189
"Combating illegal parking and drinking in public is the raison d’être of Russia’s best-known law-and-order youth initiatives, StopKham and Lev Protiv. These initiatives enforce and promote neotraditional morals amongst young people by challenging alleged offenders on camera and uploading the e
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How Big Data Can Bolster Autocratic Legitimacy (Via the Rhetoric of Safety and Convenience)
Tokyo: Toda Peace Institute (2022), 14 pp.
"This Policy Brief examines the different ways in which big data collection serves autocratic agendas by hiding the oppressive potential of heightened surveillance through promises of enhanced safety, convenience, and modernisation. Political actors with autocratic agendas can package their governan
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Turkey’s Communicative Authoritarianism
Global Media and Communication, volume 16, issue 1 (2022), pp. 102-120
"The majority of current political communication studies focus on discursive dimensions of communications and disregard how communications partake in the governing of populations through economic, material and institutional practices. By focusing on Turkey’s case, here I move beyond this approach
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Russian Social Network VK Gains Carte Blanche Following the Closure of Instagram and Facebook in the Country
Russia Analytical Digest, issue 280 (2022), pp. 20-21
"As the Russian invasion of Ukraine erupted, the country’s authorities declared a war on Western social media as well. In March, such social media giants as Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram were blocked in Russia, giving their local competitor—named VK—a virtual monopoly in the country. Millio
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Is Telegram a “harbinger of Freedom”? The Performance, Practices, and Perception of Platforms as Political Actors in Authoritarian States
Post-Soviet Affairs, volume 38, issue 1-2 (2022), pp. 125-145
"This paper examines the practices, performance, and perceptions of the messaging platform Telegram as an actor in the 2020 Belarus protests, using publicly available data from Telegram’s public statements, protest-related Telegram groups, and media coverage. Developing a novel conceptualization o
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The Unfreedom Monitor: Russia Country Report
Amsterdam: Global Voices Advox (2022), 28 pp.
"The internet gained centrality as a space of public opinion and political activity that became important for the Russian state to co-opt and control as part of the broader push for control of political elites and public perceptions as Putin and his ruling party pushed to eliminate any functioning o
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A battle of two pandemics: Coronavirus and digital authoritarianism in the Arab World
In: Cyber War & Cyber Peace: Digital Conflict in the Middle East
London; New York: Tauris (2022), pp. 161-178
"This chapter explores the current wave of coronavirus-related digital crackdowns in the Arab region, which are unfolding in multiple forms, and analyzes its causes, contexts, and consequences. It explores why and how the stifling of media freedom and freedom of speech online in the Arab region has
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The Informational Dictator's Dilemma: Citizen Responses to Media Censorship and Control in Russia and Belarus
PONARS Eurasia (2022), 9 pp.
"The findings described in this memo strongly suggest that "softer" strategies of media cooptation are more effective than harsher, more coercive approaches to media control. In Russia, where the Kremlin has-until very recently-used a combination of commercial pressure and political influence to pus
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Russian Disinformation Efforts on Social Media
Santa Monica: RAND Corporation (2022), xviii, 202 pp.
"We sought to better understand Russia's disinformation on social media and generate recommendations to better meet and counter this evolving threat. We relied on an analysis of Russian military literature, investigative efforts, official reports, academic and policy literature, media reporting, and
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Media and Democratic Backsliding: Lessons from the Turkish Case
Athens; Berlin: Hellenic Foundation for European & Foreign Policy (ELIAMEP); Centre for Applied Turkey Studies (CATS) (2022), 7 pp.
"In Turkey, the AKP came to power in 2002 at a time marked by a relatively pro-European Union and pluralistic outlook in politics. The democratic backsliding in Turkey has been more obvious since 2007 and the start of the AKP’s second term in power. It deepened especially after the 2016 coup attem
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Information Bedlam: Russian and Chinese Information Operations During Covid-19
Center for European Policy Analysis (CEPA) (2021), 20 pp.
"Based on a literature review through January 2021, evaluated at an expert seminar, this policy brief provides a baseline analysis of changing tactics, narratives, and distribution strategies in Russian and Chinese information operations (IOs) relating to the covid-19 pandemic. Key findings: China c
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Democracy and Fake News: Information Manipulation and Post-Truth Politics
London; New York: Routledge (2021), xiv, 232 pp.
"This book explores the challenges that disinformation, fake news, and post-truth politics pose to democracy from a multidisciplinary perspective. The authors analyse and interpret how the use of technology and social media as well as the emergence of new political narratives has been progressively
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The Great Firewall of China: How to Build and Control an Alternative Version of the Internet
London: Zed Books (2021), xv, 423 pp.
"China's 'Great Firewall' has evolved into the most sophisticated system of online censorship in the world. As the Chinese internet grows and online businesses thrive, speech is controlled, dissent quashed, and attempts to organise outside the official Communist Party are quickly stamped out. Update
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Cyber Capabilities and National Power: A Net Assessment
London et al.: International Institute for Strategic Studies (IISS) (2021), 174 pp.
"This report sets out a new methodology for assessing cyber power, and then applies it to 15 states: Four members of the Five Eyes intelligence alliance – the United States, the United Kingdom, Canada and Australia; Three cyber-capable allies of the Five Eyes states – France, Israel and Japan; F
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Cyber Capabilities as a New Resource of Power Conflicts in the Digital Sphere
International Reports (Konrad-Adenauer-Stiftung), issue 1 (2021), pp. 95-105
"Interestingly, traditional sources of power, such as military and economic strength, are not a prerequisite for success in cyberspace. It is true that the premier league of cyber powers also includes many traditional major powers in its ranks. But states need very few resources to build their cyber
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How Dictators Control the Internet: A Review Essay
Comparative Political Studies, volume 53, issue 10-11 (2020), pp. 1690-1703
"A growing body of research has studied how autocratic regimes interfere with internet communication to contain challenges to their rule. In this review article, we survey the literature and identify the most important directions and challenges for future research. We structure our review along diff
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The Public Sphere in Russia Between Authoritarianism and Liberation
Javnost: The Public, volume 27, issue 1 (2020), pp. 2-96
"This report analyses a persistent, large-scale influence campaign linked to Chinese state actors on Twitter and Facebook. This activity largely targeted Chinese-speaking audiences outside of the Chinese mainland (where Twitter is blocked) with the intention of influencing perceptions on key issues,
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Das ist keine Propaganda: Wie unsere Wirklichkeit zertrümmert wird
Bonn: Bundeszentrale für politische Bildung (bpb), Sonderausg. (2020), 295 pp.
"Auf der ganzen Welt nutzen unterschiedlichste Akteure die Wirkungsmechanismen der digitalen Medien aus, um durch gezielte Desinformationskampagnen die öffentliche Meinung zu beeinflussen. Dies, so lautet die zentrale These von Peter Pomerantsev, bedrohe Demokratien und Demokratisierungsprozesse. W
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