Oksana Lychkovska - Nebot

Participative media practices in Ukrainian social media: constructors of personal values and new identities versus ways of political manipulations?

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Résumé

L’objectif principal de cet article est d’analyser le rôle ambigu des médias sociaux dans le contexte ukrainien d’aujourd’hui: en tant que créateurs d’une nouvelle société qui favorisent la découverte de l’authenticité personnelle et nationale et en tant que domaine social des guerres de l’information. Nous révélons le caractère spécifique de nombreux types de pratiques de communication dans la sphère virtuelle ukrainienne contemporaine, soumises au caractère et au nombre d'interlocuteurs «simultanés / non simultanés». Ainsi, nous divisons le public des utilisateurs d’Internet en fonction de la création de significations, de valeurs et de buts de communication personnellement significatifs. Nous avons également observé différentes configurations de technologies politiques et d'information qui ont fonctionné au cours de la révolution ukrainienne de 2013-2014 et de la guerre hybride se poursuivant en 2014-2017.

Abstract

The main purpose of the paper is to analyze the ambivalent role of social media in today’s Ukrainian context: as creators of new sociality that favour finding of personal and national authenticity and as the social field of information wars. We reveal the specific character of numerous types of communicative practices in contemporary Ukrainian virtual sphere subjected to “simultaneous/ non-simultaneous” character and number of interlocutors. Thus, we divide the audience of Internet users relative to their creation of personally significant meanings, values and purposes of communication. We have also observed some different configurations of political and information technologies which have been operating in the course of Ukrainian revolution of 2013-2014 and hybrid war continuing during 2014-2017.

Table des matières

 Introduction

1The purpose of our paper is dealing with the phenomena of participative media practices in contemporary social media in general and in Ukrainian case in particular. We shall first present some theoretical reflections about crucial characteristics of participative social media which are changing the relationships of individuals within society and thus, illustrate the fusion of key elements of human desire: to express one’s identity, to create community, to structure one’s past and to present experiences. Then we would like concerning ourselves with the methods used and some empirical implications found. And in conclusion we will concentrate on the ambivalent role of participative social media in today’s Ukrainian context: as the creators of new communicative environment, new sociality that favour finding of personal and national authenticity in different gender and aging groups and as the social field of information hybrid wars and political manipulations.

Essential theoretical foundations about participative media practices

2Participative media practices are the new emergent phenomena of Internet-based social and civic activities including first of all the activities engendered by social media: networking sites; photo-sharing, blogging, and microblogging, games and so on (Lychkovska O., 2013: p. 32).  The notion of “social media” is associated with new digital media phenomena such as blogs, social network sites, location-based services, microblogs, photo- and video­ sharing sites, etc., in which ordinary users and not only media professionals can communicate with each other and create and share content with others online through their personal networked computers and digital mobile devices. For example, each reader / follower of the blog can perform the functions of an analyst, a reporter, news photographer or a service editor and vice versa. Hence, social media, allow users to communicate with each other by transmitting opinions, experience, knowledge, news, as well as photos, videos and music. Unlike traditional media, they seek the identification and belonging of the person to certain on-line or off-line communities

Three characteristics are commonly emphasized when theorizing social media

3Firstly, communication is de-institutionalized. Instead of relying on media companies delivering content and controlling channels of distribution, social media allow users to contribute to and filter the content that they find relevant, and to share it with audiences of their choice  (Boyd D., 2008: p. 27-34). De-institutionalization, however, is only partial: the ownership of the main internet access points remains centralized in the bands of just a few international media players (Castells M., 2009).

4Secondly, the user is regarded as a producer. Bruns (2008) offers the term “produser” (a contraction of producer and user) to highlight this collapse, or hybridization, of producing and using social media. Consequently, ordinary users are considered as active (even leading) participants in media production and distribution. (Bruns A., 2008).

5Thirdly, communication is interactive and networked. Social media are fundamentally driven by interaction between users: rather than having fixed positions (as either producer or recipient), in interactive exchanges users constantly shift between production and reception modes. Moreover, social media users are typically connected in a networked structure. This structure is perhaps most obvious in services such as Facebook, Twitter and Google+, in which the public articulation of networks of affiliation is a preamble for engagement.

6As a consequence of de-institutionalization and users' interactive and networked engagement with others in content production and distribution, the relationship between communicating parties in social media becomes more symmetrical and less hierarchical (Bruns, 2008). Users are in direct contact with each other without an intermediary agent. Simultaneously as far as the Internet platforms facilitate the “produsage” through specific services, different degrees of asymmetric power structures emerge between users.

Types of communicative practices in social media based on man-to-man and man-to-screen interactions

7The possibility of creating many types of communicative practices instantiated both in face-to-face interaction and in digital media technologies is an obvious benefit. Along one dimension, we distinguish between synchronous and asynchronous communication. Time is essential in communication: there is a world of difference between talking to a family member on the telephone or reading simultaneous messages and listening to his/her message s/he left on one’s answering machine or reading texts posted in social networks. Aсcording to the other dimension, we refer to the number of participants in a given communication and the nature of their interaction: who gets to say something to how many ones (i.e. one-to-one/many or many-to-many/one). So, we are dealing with to  “Asynchronous many-to-many communication” (Web 2.0 / wiki, blog, social network site), or “Synchronous many-to-many communication” (online chatroom), either “Asynchronous one-to-one communication” (Email, SMS, MMS), or “synchronous one-to-one communication” (messengers), either “asynchronous one-to-many communication” (Web 1.0, website, blog, micro blog), or, finally, “synchronous one-to-many communication” (Internet TV etc.) (Lychkovska O., 2013: p. 31).

8When passing to anthropological and psychological backgrounds to participative media practices I would like to outline the fusion of key elements of human desire which determine their appeal: to express one’s identity, to create community, to structure one’s past and to present experiences.

Attractive characteristics of participative media practices and pragmatic regimes of their use

91. “The positive appeal”, when addressing to everybody they turn to each taken separately to invite him proving, trying, responding – REGIME OF MASS USE;

102. “The simplicity and availability of on line texts and narratives” when comprehension doesn’t need additional education or extra socialization – REGIME OF TYPICALNESS;

113. REGIME OF SOCIAL DISTANCE. When reading or watching, or following “out-of-the box” communicative product an individual, un user as though builds up “personal space and time”, isolates himself from outside and from the necessity to make decision;

124. REGIME OF SOCIAL COMPENSATION. An individual succeeded in to forget usual social role and worried role conflicts, to escape out of social world by means of digital practices.

13The above mentioned mechanisms, anyhow, meet existential needs of an audience for safety, stability, structuration of the everyday life in conditions of institutional instability and lacks values that allow audience of users to form the strategy of adaptive behavior too.

14Regardless of their content, participative media practices are always reverse or chronological trace of personal activities, experiences, and/or thoughts. Through extensive narratives and often highly personal descriptions of day-to-day activities, and through the use of images, a user reveals and creates—intentionally or not—his or her unique online identity.

15Unlike personal Web presentations, as Twitter and Instagram structured around “the essence of me,” blogs and social networks are structured around “the process of me.” Unlike chatting, pointed toward “hear me out at this moment,” they are pointed toward “hear me out throughout, at every turn.”

16Participative social media, thus, are a twofold communicative event. On one hand, it is the event of “writing oneself” through continuous recording of past and present experiences, just as in the case of traditional diaries. On the other hand, on line texts or images represent “rewriting oneself” through interaction with the audience. Unlike writing a traditional text, on line narratives is a process of linking two or more individuals. This is why they are both private and public. The character of participative media practices as simultaneously private and public enables the formation of both individual and group identities.

17Participative media practices also promote a high level of self-exposure to the audience often large and largely unknown to the author that satisfies narcissistic personal needs of self-representations and seeking of love. The personalized virtual communities engendered by social media manifest the move away from “primary relationship” (family) and “secondary relationship” (association membership) – both can be exemplified as “strong social ties” – toward “tertiary relationship” (“weak social ties”) which are centered on individual’s choices and lead to “the privatization of sociability” (Castells, 2009: p. 128).  The thin or weak ties that are central to social networks may be criticized as symptomatic of the narcissistic seeking of status rather than friendship (Rosen, 2007) and at the same time “weak social ties” can be seen as mechanisms to enhance our mobility and create opportunities to permanently receive information and to keep always in touch.

Social media as values creators

18Returning to the main purpose of this research, one can mention that focusing specifically on the notion of values and senses creation in social media,  we consider participative practices of users in 3 interconnected senses: (a) as someone who interacts and connects with fellow users, drawing from these relationships a sense of social belonging; (b) as someone who engages actively and sometimes creatively with technologies to express and explore their senses of self; (c) as someone using social media more instrumentally as a source of information and expertise in everyday life. On the basis of these criteria we could dwell some typologies. First of all, it is possible to allocate extremely active users or “insiders”, then “newbies”, in other words the new users who are in process of learning and searching and, finally, certain “lurkers” – blog readers or social network followers without active participation and they never contribute to own content. (Baym NK., 2000; Lychkovska O., 2012). The other criteria of differentiation are formed by the axes “information dependence/addiction versus information discretion”, “tool orientation versus communicative orientation versus orientation to joining and belonging”. Regarding actor roles in participative social media, we could distinguish between different modes of engagement in relation to membership in specific groups or networks within the social media environment. 1) User as self-creator through posted content; 2) User as member of specific groups/communities, expressing social belonging; 3) User as audience (reader, lurker) of other users' activities as well as user as information-seeker/entertainment-seeker 4) User as profile holder and self-presenter.

Social types of Internet users in contemporary Ukraine (sociological analysis)

19And let's take a look at some of the empirical trends about types of Internet users that are specific to the Ukrainian case. We use the data from two surveys: 1) “Consumption and communication in the modern Ukrainian city”, which has been realized in Odessa in 2012 by Oksana Lychkovska and Tatiana Kryvosheya (In Spring of 2012, Sample number 500 respondents represented adult population of Odessa by criteria of gender, age and education level, Sampling error – 3,5 %), and 2) “Communicative and cultural everyday practices of Odessa city population” which has been held in Odessa in 2017 by Oksana Lychkovska and Svetlana Romanenko (In Autumn of 2017, Sample number 446, respondents represented adult population of Odessa city population by criteria of gender, age and education level, Sampling error – 3,8 % ).

20The following table demonstrates the combination of two questions mutually controlling each other: "How often do you use the Internet? And "How much time per day are you connected? By using two typology criteria - the frequency and the time used - several types of digital engagement have been revealed. The monitoring survey allowed us to discover some trends in participative practices of Internet users.

Table 1. Modes of engagement into digital practices: 2012-2017

Type	Frequency and duration	2012	2017
Not engaged	Not users	23%	19%
Very weakly engaged	Once a week but not more than 15 minutes	1%	2%
Irregular weakly engaged users	Once a week no more than 30 minutes	5%	5%
Irregular intermediary engaged users	Once a week for 1-2 hours	2%	4%
Regular intermediary engaged users	From one to a few times a week for 1-2 hours	18%	17%
Regular active users	From one to a few times a week for 3-5 hours	17%	11%
Regular extremely active users	Every day and more than 5 hours per day	12%	13%
Contradictory users	Alternative responses on frequency and duration	5%	4%
Uncertain users	Difficult to answer	9%	16%

21The number of “Not-engaged” is decreasing from 23% to 19%. “Very weakly engaged” users who use the Internet once or a few times a week not more than 15 minutes remain stable at the level of 1-2%, the same trend concerns the “Irregular users weakly engaged” (a once a week no more than 30 minutes) - 5%. The amount of “Irregular intermediary engaged users” who switch to the Internet once a week no more than 1-2 hours doubled from 2% to 4%. The main group of “Irregular intermediary engaged users” (every day or several times a week for 1 to 2 hours) remains constant and embraces almost a fifth of Internet users - 18% - 17%. The number of “Regular active users” (every day or several times a week from 3 to 5 hours) is decreasing a little from 17% to 11%, probably because of every day connection practice, which complicates the time measurement: as a result, the number of “Uncertain ones” is increasing from 9% to 16%. The number of “Regular extremely active users” remains relatively stable - just over a tenth of the sample: 12% - 13%. Finally, the “Contradictory users” share, giving mutually exclusive answers on the frequency and the time, does not exceed 5%.

Empirical types of communicative practices in social media based on person-to-person and person-to-screen interactions in Ukrainian context

22The analysis of typological groups of direct and mediated interaction realized in 2012 and 2017 by using of Factor analysis (hereinafter the Method of Principal Components is used with Varimax rotation and Kaiser Normalization) showed that in minds and in behavior of individuals 2 types of interactions are clearly distinguished. In 2012, these are “mediatized communication practices”, which include the use of “the Internet (ICQ, Skype, Messengers, WhatsApp, and other interactive features)” (0.856), “email” (0.898) and which is remarkable, “regular mail” (0.528) and “direct/face-to-face communicative practices”, covering, respectively, “personal meetings” (0.762), “fixed line phone” (0.654) and “mobile phone” (0.494). Interpretation of the factors obtained in 2012 allowed identifying two opposite trends. First, there was a tendency to include phone interaction in the sphere of direct, face-to-face communication and, accordingly, it was possible to talk about changing attitudes to telephony (fixed or mobile), about the perception of the phone not as a “technical intermediary”, but only a convenient “assistant” of live communication, able to overcome geographical barriers. And, secondly, which is absolutely obvious, there was a relatively clear demarcation between on-line and off-line communications in the minds of respondents. In 2017, two typological groups also stand out: modern face-to-face/face-to-screen communicative practices including the use of “social networks” (0.88), “e-mail” (0.85), “ICQ, Skype, Messengers” (0.82), “Mobile phone” (0.69), “personal meetings” (0.58), and traditionally mediatized communication practices covering, respectively, “fixed line phone (0.88) and “regular mail and telegraph” (0.72).

23We see that during 5 years significant changes have taken place - now the consumer practically does not see the difference between face-to-face and face-to-screen communications, thanks to this “personal meetings” fall into the same group as computer-mediated forms of communication and mobile phone, while at the same time, communication using a fixed telephone and exchanges using regular mail or telegraph is completely in different one. Thus, we can conclude that now the criterion of differentiation is no more “oral / written forms of communication,” or “simultaneous / non-simultaneous communications”, but “modern versus traditional communications”, that results in almost completely erasing the distinction between direct and indirect communications.

24
The revealed tendencies in general remain also in typological groups of respondents identified by gender and by age, and they are most clearly represented in the male segment of the audience and in the middle age group (30-49 years).

Empirical types of communicative practices in social media based on person-to-person and person-to-screen interactions in gender’s groups and in youth audience

25As for the women audience, in 2012 there are three types of communicative practices: “mediatized” - using the Internet (0.899) and e-mail (0.907), “direct” – by personal meetings (0.695) and by a fixed line phone (0.842) , as well as “mobile”, carried out only with a mobile phone (0.624). Apparently, we can tell about the special expressive importance of a mobile phone for women, as well as about the tendency of women sacrificing and anthropomorphizing things, turning them into another friend or family member: women are rather reverent about their attitude to mobile phones, it is natural to care about them, put in protective covers, accompany with various accessories, give affectionate names, etc.

26In 2017, the female audience segment is already represented by two another types of communicative practices - “modern mediatized communication practices” - they include “social networks” (0.88), “e-mail (0.86), “ICQ, Skype, Messengers” (0.77), “mobile phone” (0.59) and “traditional direct/mediated communication practices” including usage of “fixed land phone” (0.89), “regular mail and telegraph” (0.67) and “personal meetings” (0.54). As you can see, now the attitude to a mobile phone loses its sacredness and pragmatics becomes more instrumental, similar to men’s, at the same time some touch of “tradition and nostalgia” or, on the contrary, something like unnecessary and obsolete is associated in the minds of women with traditional sources of communication, such as regular mail, telegraph, and fixed land phone.

27Also, some specificity is observed in the youth segment of the audience (18–29 years old) in 2017. Here, 3 types of communication practices were identified - “Internet-oriented communication practices” include communication via “e-mail” (0.79), “social networks” (0.78) and “ICQ, Skype, Messengers” (0.69), “direct and mobile phone mediated practices” covering, respectively, “personal meetings” (0.84) and “mobile phone” (0.74) and, finally, “traditionally mediated communication practices”, which included, respectively, “regular mail and telegraph” (0.81) and “fixed land phone” (0.77). We see that here, in the youth audience compared with the general population, we can identify 2 groups (axes) of differentiation criteria:  traditionalism / modernity of intermediaries (the latter are directly connected with computer communication) and  immediacy / mediation of communication. In this regard, it should be noted that the youth audience especially clearly showed a tendency to blur the boundaries between face-to-face communication and mobile phone communication. It is also necessary to say that, despite the significant involvement of young people in computer-mediated communications, interpersonal communication in real-time, which stands out as a separate and significant type of communicative practice, is still important for them.

Participative media practices as ways of information wars in contemporary Ukraine

28And finally, to tell about ambiguous role of participative media practices in actual Ukrainian political context I would like to briefly dwell on some elements of the information hybrid war, which we can largely find out in numerous social media.

29Hybrid war (Поцепцов, 2017) is addressed to the population as a goal, because, having left the physical space, it manifests itself in an unphysical dimension. It can be an economic, commercial, financial war. It can also be a collision or a conflict in the field of meanings and interpretations, which can be described as an information or virtual type of hybrid war.

30The components of the information war are complex and multilevel ones 1) it is possible to talk about institutional elements: prohibition of certain information resources, censorship in the media, creation of special controlled media that perform targeted manipulation, starting from the "soft power" of propaganda and ending with the creation of fake or hybrid news. 2) Creation and broadcasting of "hate narratives" or "war narratives". Similar narratives are best created and broadcast just in social media and memes are used as a key element. 3) Creation and use of “Troll sphere”.

31The term meme is a unit of cultural information (cultural quantum) that consciously or unknowingly transmits from one to another the idea, image, symbol, action, any cultural information, copied by one person from another; collective unconscious at the time of acquiring verbal and visual forms, specially created informational message, which extends within info space in order to form a model of consciousness and human behavior. The principle of memes making is the construction of an insulting epithet, a neologism whose meaning, however, is easily identifiable, as long as it appeals to archetypes and stereotypes that are negatively and emotionally colored. As a few examples, you can consider Russian memes addressed to Western Europe - the infamous "Gay • ro • pa", or pejoratively referring to the Ukrainian patriots - "svido-mity", which is a combination of 2 words - "svidomi", that is, "conscious " and " Sodomit " or the pejorative nominations of the pro-Russian population of Donbas by Ukrainians patriots - " Down-bas" that is, as mentally inferior.

32Finally the particular attention must be paid, of course, to a considerable role of trolls in the information war. As a rule, the trolling is 80% program and 20% - the account of a real person. The task of the trolls is not just to give false information, but to disguise the idea of ​​falsity, so the main technique is to create a hybrid of truth and lies, but a hybrid is always saturated with negative emotions that are known to overcome mental barriers more easily and facilitate involuntary memorization of information. The following slides demonstrate the main types of trolls that are used in the information hybrid war from the part of Russia against Ukraine which has been continuing since 2013.

331. REVOLUTIONARY-RADICAL, the propagandist of violence. The icons are with a military accent. The image of the Volunteer or Fighter ATO, or the Rebel. A modern Cozzack, with a rifle or the elements of cyberpunk, is, however, certainly threatening with herring. The avatar of the face is necessarily covered with a scab (rebellion) or tactical glasses (Warrior). Ukrainian leaders are portrayed negatively. Poroshenko and Putin are put in one row. The President of Ukraine is their permanent target. These militant trolls often sympathize with ultra-right political movements and give the cult of Stepan Bandera (Stepan Andriïovych Bandera, born January 1, 1909 in the province of Kalush in the East of the Austro-Hungarian Empire and murdered on October 15, 1959 in Munich, a Ukrainian political personnality, one of the prominent ideologues and theorists of the Ukrainian nationalist movement of the 20th century)

342. Second type: POLITICAL ANALYST. This type of trolling is more focused not on appeals to the revolution, but on analyzing of current political vents. The general mood of the posts is rather negative one; we can often observe numerous offensive images of politicos and officials, on the cover - a quote about betrayal and the necessity of struggle in Ukraine. You can also often find lines from the works of Ukrainian writers or quotes from fighters for the independence of different times. The quotations are often fabricated.

 

353. Third type: MODEL UKRAINIANS. Especially popular avatars are “dreamy girls” in the corolla (with yellow-blue ribbons or thorns), dresses-flags, embroidery, on the background of wheat, etc. In this image there is an element of suffering, something resembling the heroines of Shevchenko and disappointed Ukraine. The content is not very visible: all the same links from dubious sites, discrediting authorities, examples of injustice and iron evidence that "everything is gone".

364. Fourth type, not very common – WILD ANIMALS (wolves, tigers, so on). This type includes several users who have many network connections, but their profiles are not rather legible. Having a lot of friends they often administer groups, but at the same time they do not post frequently. Their goal is to manage negative communication “staying in the shade” as a kind of “eminence grise”.

Conclusions

37Summing up the crucial role of participative media practices and social media in creating personal values and national identities in contemporary Ukraine I would like to note that as the technical capabilities of new communications and media technologies are increasing, as the network of actors involved in these technologies is expanding, the pragmatics of communication practices in contemporary Ukraine is also changing:
• There is a blurring of boundaries between direct and indirect communicative practices — both become participative ones,

38• There is a growing tendency to the separation of communicative practices by the criterion of using traditional or modern intermediaries,

39
• The sacralization of new media technologies is diminishing  and their instrumental pragmatics is enhancing,
• The distinction in relation to new technologies between female and male audience is erasing, the attitude of “women” to new media is becoming more rational and pragmatic,
• The importance of  real-time face-to-face communication continues to persist in the youth segment of the audience

40On the macro social level we can characterize new participative practices as an instrument of individual and political communication, but also as one of self-organizational form of civil society,

41The use of participative practices and social media favours the formation of identities, self-presentation, structuring the personal experience, search of a reference group, and also brightly shows blurring the borders between private and public.

42But on the other hand, new mechanisms of confrontation in social media are using the principal components of information hybrid war that took place in traditional and digital media: hidden mechanisms of political confrontation, new “soft power” as misinformation creating the phenomena of dissociated consciousness and controlled personality. And the case of Russian-Ukrainian hybrid war is one of such illustrative example of dangerous escalation which can have rather crucial effects not only in post-communistic countries of Eastern Europe, but be extended over Western Europe borders. 

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