The extremely important topics of the reports, as well as the incentive to reflect on who we owe our security and the opportunity to conduct research, are what attracted attention to the XII International Scientific and Practical Conference “Roman Ivanchenko Scientific School”, which took place in late autumn 2024 at the Department of Publishing and Editing of the Institute of VPI of Igor Sikorsky Kyiv Polytechnic Institute. Like most similar scientific events currently held at the university, this one was held online for obvious reasons.
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The co-organizers of the conference were the Ministry of Education and Science of Ukraine, the National Academy of Sciences of Higher Education of Ukraine, the National Technical University of Ukraine “Igor Sikorsky Kyiv Polytechnic Institute”, and the Educational and Scientific Publishing and Printing Institute of Igor Sikorsky Kyiv Polytechnic Institute. Other co-organizers included the Faculty of Philology of the University of Lodz (Lodz, Poland), the University of Warmia and Mazury, the Institute of Political Science (Olsztyn, Poland), and GS Publishing Services (Los Angeles, Sherman Oaks, USA).
The participants discussed a number of topical issues of strategic communications in wartime, creative innovations in modern education in journalism, publishing, advertising and public relations. The speakers included scholars and media professionals from Ukraine, Estonia, Romania, and Poland. This year they presented 45 reports, and 30% of them belonged to KPI researchers.
The theme of effective counteraction to the spread of russian propaganda as part of the current war of aggression in Ukraine by russia was a red thread through the speeches at the plenary session, which was opened by the co-chair of the conference organizing committee, director of the Institute of VPI Petro Kyrychok. The use of social media and the so-called “troll factory” to disinform and hide the truth is a real challenge for the Ukrainian media. What can be done to counteract the narratives of Russian social media and the information injections of Kremlin bots?
Due to the lack of newspaper space, we can only focus on certain theses of individual reports.
Thus, Yevhen Magda, Associate Professor of the Institute of VPI's Department of Publishing and Editing, a well-known political scientist and journalist, believes that there are grounds to talk about the use of a new kind of troops by the Russian Federation - the spreaders of information and propaganda fakes. The latter are the cheapest weapons of mass impression. “It is in our national interest to counteract this phenomenon,“ he emphasized. ‘Promotion of theses about the ineffectiveness of Western weapons in the Kremlin-controlled media, search and demonstrative prosecution of foreign servicemen of the Armed Forces, positioning them as mercenaries, refusal to use the word ’war” in reports and replace it with the term “special military operation,” slogans about denazification and demilitarization of Ukraine are not a complete list of the main ideological messages from Russian propagandists. “Carpet bombing” of the global information space with messages from Russian media, for example, in anonymous telegram channels, is a threat against the background of Ukraine's information field.”
Speakers at the conference and participants in the discussions emphasized that it is important to write about the current war in Ukraine without distorting reality. It is necessary to be able not only to refute but also to analyze Russian narratives, which are part of information and psychological special operations (IPO) - planned actions to disseminate false information aimed at the Ukrainian audience to influence the emotions, critical thinking, feelings and actions of ordinary Ukrainians. An example of this is the coverage of tragic events in Ukraine, in particular those that resulted from the military aggression of the Russian Federation, which racist propagandists are trying to use as a pretext to discredit the Ukrainian government and the Armed Forces of Ukraine.
Over the course of almost 11 years of war, our country has taken tangible steps to combat disinformation. However, the challenges are growing, and we are moving towards defining and consolidating social norms and rules, bringing them into the system to combat fakes. Therefore, we must not only refute them, but also take a proactive stance. And if we talk about a “fascist” or “Nazi state” (the enemy's favorite label for Ukraine), we should refer to Russia. And this is not just about Putin alone or the Bolshevik traditions, in the wake of which the Bolsheviks unleashed a civil war and massive “red” terror for the sake of power and established a new totalitarian regime. In fact, the 100-year old traditions of Russian imperialism and colonialism have not changed today, as the conference participants generally agreed.
Among other issues raised during the conference was the problem of social media invading the traditional media landscape. According to the statistics presented by Tetiana Ivanova, a professor at Mariupol State University, in her report “Models of Journalism Training in the 21st Century: Analysis and Prospects,” the number of print media in Ukraine has significantly decreased due to the war. Nevertheless, out of 329 Ukrainian media outlets that functioned before the start of Russian military aggression, 52 have recently resumed publishing. So it is premature to talk about the complete loss of the media market. However, according to official statistics, as of January 5, 2024, there were 5.3 billion Internet users in the world (almost 66% of the world's population), the vast majority of whom are social media users. As a result, the Internet deprives professional journalists of their usual monopoly function of searching for, processing, and transmitting information. Non-media people are beginning to compete with professional journalists.
What should be the model for training professional journalists in these conditions? According to Tetyana Ivanova, students should be taught not only slow media methods, which are aimed at producing and using high-quality information content. So FAST journalism is on the agenda. “FAST channels (Free ad-supported streaming television) are, according to Detector Media, free streaming channels with advertising support,” said the speaker. - “In the Ukrainian market, this is the name given to language media that rights holders create from popular old content to further monetize their TV libraries on OTT services (a streaming media service offered to viewers via the Internet, bypassing cable, terrestrial and satellite television platforms). According to the researcher, it is necessary to popularize primarily those channels whose program content will include documentary projects about Ukraine, episodes that debunk historical myths not only about our country but also about the rest of the world. Of course, reports by military correspondents on events from the frontlines, interviews with influential people and politicians, etc. will also be relevant. Professor Ivanova also emphasized that current pedagogical methods of training future journalists should be aimed at developing critical thinking when searching for and verifying certain information from various sources in order to develop a well-founded position on a particular issue.
Thus, we can state that the war has an impact on the media and journalism education. Teaching how to predict and build the future of social communications is alpha, but not omega, in the activities of the teaching community to overcome the challenges faced by national journalism.
It is worth noting that there were no passing reports at this year's conference - all the presentations were extremely relevant. Readers will be able to read more about them after the conference materials are posted on the website of the Department of Publishing and Editing of the School of Journalism.