Leaked email data: a new source for the study of authoritarian regimes

Smyth R.

Libman A.

Hauter J.

Online media is a blessing and a curse for academic research on war. On the one hand, the internet provides unprecedented access to information from conflict zones. On the other hand, the prevalence of disinformation can make it difficult to use this information in a transparent way. This article proposes digital forensic process tracing as a methodological innovation to tackle this challenge and make case study research on the causes of war fit for the social media age. It argues that two important features of process-tracing methodology – source criticism and Bayesian updating – are well developed in theory but are rarely applied to the study of armed conflict. Digital forensic process tracing applies these features to online media sources by drawing on the journalistic practice of open source intelligence (OSINT) analysis. This article uses the case of the war in eastern Ukraine’s Donbas region to illustrate the usefulness of the proposed methodology.

FRYE T.

Boustead A.E., Herr T.

ABSTRACTAlthough information made public after a data breach can provide insight into difficult research questions, use of these data raises ethical questions not directly addressed by current ethical guidelines. This article develops a framework for identifying and managing risks to human subjects when conducting research involving leaked data. We contend that researchers who seek to use leaked data should identify and address ethical challenges by considering the process through which the data were originally released into the public domain.

Hosaka S.

AbstractThe leaked email accounts of Putin’s aide on Ukraine, Vladislav Surkov, are vast primary source collections that shed light on the backstage happenings of the Kremlin’s politics in the Donbas war. Surkov is an excellent dramaturg; he writes scripts, casts actors, analyzes their performance and narratives, runs promotions, and puts the repertoire into motion to achieve intended reactions of the target audience. Methods and resources employed against Ukraine have much in common with political technology that helps the Kremlin to manipulate public opinion as well as election systems using pseudo-experts, technical parties, fake civic organizations and youth movement such as Nashi, and covert media techniques. Moscow tactically promoted the myth of “Novorossiya”—later the circumstances forced Surkov to replace it with “Donbas.” These tactics gave false credibility to “separatists” who would voice Moscow’s objections to any attempts of Ukraine to drift westward, creating an illusion in the domestic and international audience: the separatists are not puppets of Moscow but desperately fight against Kyivjuntafor their localized identity, and Russia is just there to offer them a helping hand. The Russian policy toward Ukraine after the 2013 fall is an extension of its “virtual” domestic politics, but not traditional diplomacy at all.

Jaillant L.

Schneider J., Adams C., DeBauche S., Echols R., McKean C., Moran J., Waugh D.

Hosaka S.

Kayser-Bril N.

Datajournalism is the act of measuring the unmeasured. Using examples of investigations by Journalism ++ measuring refugee casualties (Migrants Files), rent prices (Rentswatch) and subsidies to professional football (The Football Tax) this essay will explore the implications of setting up such databases, both theoretical and practical. It will then assess the relationships such measurement initiatives develop with stakeholders in the European news ecosystem.

Giuliano E.

AbstractDonetsk and Luhansk are often labeled pro-Russian regions as a result of the founding of Peoples’ Republics there in spring 2014. This article investigates popular opinion in Donbas before armed conflict began, to determine whether the high concentration of ethnic Russians there drove support for separatism. Analysis of a KIIS opinion poll shows that, on the one hand, ethnic Russian respondents were divided on most separatist issues, with a minority backing separatist positions. On the other hand, they supported separatist issues in larger numbers than both ethnic Ukrainians and respondents with hybrid identities. Thus, while ethnic identity does not produce polarized preferences, it is relevant in shaping political attitudes. Also, analysis of an original database of statements made by Donbas residents indicate that they were motivated to support separatism by local concerns exacerbated by a sense of abandonment by Kyiv rather than by Russian language and pro-Russian foreign policy issues.

Fedor J., Fredheim R.

In this article, we examine how the Putin government is attempting to respond and adapt to the YouTube phenomenon and the vibrant oppositional online visual culture on Runet. We show how these processes are giving rise to new forms of state propaganda, shaped and driven above all by the quest for high-ranking search-engine results and the concomitant desire to appeal to the perceived new sensibilities of the Internet generation through the commissioning and production of “viral videos.” We focus in particular on the videos created by Iurii Degtiarev, a pioneer in the development of this genre, whose works we explore in light of the “Kremlingate” email leaks, which offer inside information on the strategies and aims being pursued on the online visual front of the campaign to manage the Russian mediascape, and Degtiarev's own reflections on this subject. Examining the output of young creatives patronized by the Kremlin offers a “bottom-up” view to supplement studies of the Russian ideological and media landscape as shaped by “political technologists” such as Vladislav Surkov and Gleb Pavlovskii.

Vinh-Doyle W.P.

Davies L.

Katchanovski I.

ABSTRACTUkraine previously experienced significant regional political divisions, including separatism in Crimea and Donbas. However, in contrast to post-communist countries such as Azerbaijan, Georgia, Moldova, and former Yugoslavia, prior to 2014 Ukraine was able to avoid a war and a break-up. This study examines the role of separatists, the Yanukovych government, the Maidan opposition and the Maidan government, far-right organizations, Russia, the US, and the EU in the conflict in Donbas. It uses a specially commissioned survey by the Kyiv International Institute of Sociology (KIIS) in 2014 to analyse public support for separatism in Donbas, compared to other regions of Ukraine, and the major factors which affect such support. It concludes that all these actors contributed in various ways to the conflict in Donbas, which involved both a civil war and a direct Russian military intervention since August 2014. The study links this conflict to the ‘Euromaidan’, specifically, the government overthrow by mean...

Di Salvo P.