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The Defender Vs. the Censor: CDA Analysis of 2017 Russian Web-Source Ban in Ukraine

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The Defender Vs. the Censor: CDA Analysis of 2017 Russian Web-Source Ban in Ukraine Department of Informatics and Media Master’s Programme in Social Sciences, Digital Media and Society specialization Two-year Master’s Thesis The Defender vs. the Censor: CDA Analysis of 2017 Russian Web-Source Ban in Ukraine Student: Anna Sliesarieva Supervisor: Solange Hamrin May 2020 Abstract With the new challenges of the digital world associated with disinformation, data breaches, and cybercrimes (Cadwalladr & Graham-Harrison, 2018; Connolly et al., 2016; Shipley & Bowker, 2013) many countries nowadays discuss approaches to Internet regulation. In Ukraine, which faced propaganda tactics employed by Russia as a part of the Ukrainian-Russian conflict (Yurkova, 2018), the need for information security in recent years became a major challenge. In 2017, authorities of Ukraine addressed the challenge by introducing sanctions to the most-used Russian web-platforms, including social networks Vkontakte and Odnoklassniki, search engine Yandex, and many other services. This study analyzed the discourse that was formed around the decision. The work incorporates the model of critical discourse analysis by Fairclough (1995a) and framing analysis by Pan & Kosicki (1993). This qualitative study analyzed materials from Ukrainian online media, TV stories, user comments, and political speeches from 16th-17th May 2017 – the dates when the decision on blocking of Russian web-sources was announced to the Ukrainian public. The research answers the questions about the dominant discourses in society regarding the approach of the authorities to Internet regulation, the main arguments and counter-arguments, and media framing. The results show that the discussion was locked in a trap of two dominant discourses of freedom of speech and national security, whereas alternative measures to restrictions were not represented on the public agenda. Keywords: censorship, Internet regulation, freedom of expression, digital media, information warfare Word count: 25412 2 Table of contents Abstract ................................................................................................................................................... 2 1. Introduction ................................................................................................................................... 4 1.2. Aim and contribution of the research .......................................................................................... 6 1.3. Research questions ............................................................................................................................ 7 1.4. Disposition ............................................................................................................................................ 7 2. Background .................................................................................................................................... 8 3. Literature and concepts ........................................................................................................... 11 3.1. Censorship ........................................................................................................................................... 11 3.2. Freedom of speech and media freedom .................................................................................... 13 3.3. Censorship in times of war and conflict .................................................................................... 13 3.4. Censorship support .......................................................................................................................... 15 3.5. Media coverage of freedom of speech limitations ................................................................. 15 4. Theoretical framework ............................................................................................................ 16 4.1. Critical discourse analysis ............................................................................................................. 16 4.2. The special role of the media in discourse theory ................................................................. 24 4.3. Critical Discourse Analysis by Fairclough ................................................................................ 25 4.4. Framing theory .................................................................................................................................. 28 4.5. Framing for analyzing news discourse ...................................................................................... 30 5. Methodology and data .............................................................................................................. 33 5.1. Data ........................................................................................................................................................ 33 5.2. The model for the current research ........................................................................................... 37 5.3. Applicability and validity of the methodological approach ............................................... 39 5.4. Coding system .................................................................................................................................... 39 5.5. Limitations .......................................................................................................................................... 43 5.6. Ethical considerations ..................................................................................................................... 46 6. Results and analysis .................................................................................................................. 47 6.1. Text ........................................................................................................................................................ 47 6.2. Media texts: framing through omitted points and sensationalism .................................. 53 6.3. Discursive practice ........................................................................................................................... 57 6.3.1. Your right to free speech ends with my right to security: arguments for the decision ........... 58 6.3.2. Users will suffer the most: arguments against the decision ............................................................ 59 6.4. Social practice .................................................................................................................................... 62 6.4.1. Connected and omitted topics ................................................................................................................... 63 6.4.2. Power dimensions and dominant discourses in society .................................................................... 64 7. Discussion and implications .................................................................................................. 66 8. Conclusion and future research ............................................................................................ 70 References ............................................................................................................................................ 72 3 1. Introduction The ideal of media freedom originated almost simultaneously with the first printed newspapers (D. A. Graber, 2017; Oloyede, 2005). It suggested that media should be free from governmental interference and collect information freely in the interest of the public (Oloyede, 2005). Freedom of press – which stems from the right to free expression – is globally protected right under Article 19 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. Thus, irrespective of political regime, press freedom is enshrined in constitutions of almost all countries in the world (Oloyede, 2005). In the 20th century, with the development of the Internet, expectations about media freedom reached a very optimistic point, when it seemed that any kind of information would be open to the public (Lindgren, 2017, p. 59; Young, 2001, pp. 11–12). The early Internet was built on ideas of freedom and openness, it “interpreted censorship as damage and routed around it” (Doten, 2011). Back in the 2000s, Bill Clinton, then president of the United States, ridiculed the attempts of China to regulate the Internet as if they tried “to nail Jello to the wall” (Griffiths, 2018). Nowadays, however, it is clear that the statement was far from truth. The discourse of the Internet freedom was replaced by the discourse of Internet regulation (Young, 2001). It is clear that the Internet can be both a liberation and a repression technology (Rød & Weidmann, 2015). Arab Spring uprisings showed the potential of the Internet and social media in protest action, which was taken cautiously by autocratic regimes around the globe (Roth, 2012). The last decade was accompanied by fundamentally new challenges of digital technologies, such as data breaches (Cadwalladr & Graham-Harrison, 2018), and fake news (Soll, 2016). With all those issues on the plate, the real question nowadays is not whether it is possible to regulate the Internet, but how to do it (Pollicino & Bassini, 2014, p. 348). The real question nowadays is not whether the Internet will be limited, but to what extent. Thus, it is crucial to determine how countries discuss Internet regulations, how citizens perceive limitations, which restrictions are considered to be necessary by governments and societies. The media coverage of freedom of speech limitations – or censorship measures – constitutes the major interest of the
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