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The Ukrainian crisis in Russian and Ukrainian TV news
Dziuba, Daryna ; Nečas, Vlastimil (advisor) ; Just, Petr (referee)
This diploma thesis examines the topic of news coverage of the Ukrainian crisis in the Ukrainian and Russian media in the period between February 2015 and March 2016. The topic of analysis was based on personal interest for the subject. To realize the goals, this work is divided into several parts. The first part of the diploma thesis focuses on the description of the main media theories, including the theory of framing; then the concepts of hybrid war and propaganda, which are necessary for understanding the issue, are described. Then the anatomy of the Ukrainian conflict is explained, specifically the war in Donbas, roots of which go back to 2014. The thesis also includes a description of previous academic studies about the coverage of the Ukrainian crisis in foreign media. The second part of this thesis deals with the analysis of media content about the events in eastern Ukraine, which were disseminated by the Russian state agency TASS and the Ukrainian agency Ukrinform. The next part of this thesis is a description of creating a process of own research, setting research goals and characteristics of the tools, which were used to achieve them. The last part of the thesis describes the results of the implemented content analysis. This work may serve for better understanding the role of the media...
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Disinformation as a Societal Phenomenon: A Case Study of Truth Decay in Slovakia
Húsková, Eva ; Bahenský, Vojtěch (advisor) ; Střítecký, Vít (referee)
The main purpose of this master's thesis is to offer a deeper understanding of disinformation trends and their causes in Slovakia by utilizing the theoretical and analytical framework of the concept of Truth Decay defined by the RAND Corporation in 2018. At the same time, the work also contributes to the exploration of the phenomenon of Truth Decay in general. The research stems from a premise that disinformation should not be strictly perceived as a tool of hybrid warfare. Hence, there is an increasing need to analyze disinformation as a wider societal problem that leaves its marks on society in different ways. Based on 11 expert interviews with professionals with different backgrounds (academia, think tanks, government institutions, security institutions, journalism, or psychology), this master's thesis consists of two main analytical chapters. The first one analyzes four trends of Truth Decay in a Slovak setting: an increasing disagreement about facts and analytical interpretations of facts and data; a blurring of the line between opinion and fact; an increase in the relative volume, and resulting influence, of opinion and personal experience over fact; and lowered trust in formerly respected sources of factual information. The second analytical chapter is focusing on possible drivers of these...
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The American Hybrid War? Operation Enduring Freedom through the hybrid warfare lenses
Pinkas, Šimon ; Bahenský, Vojtěch (advisor) ; Karásek, Tomáš (referee)
This diploma thesis delves into the possibility of the Western democratic state waging hybrid warfare. The hybrid warfare has been throughout its existence almost exclusively attributed to undemocratic regimes, which often utilize it in an aggressive fashion. In order to challenge this notion, this thesis seeks to reinterpret the conduct of the USA during the opening stages of the Operation Enduring Freedom in Afghanistan 2001, through the lenses of hybrid warfare. Since hybrid warfare is very wide, often poorly defined term, the author chose to conceptualize a well- known description of Russian hybrid warfare, created by András Rácz in 2015, through which the studied case is then reinterpreted. The possibility of the Western democratic state waging hybrid warfare is, as far as existing research goes, completely unexplored, this thesis is hence delving into a completely new research area. This thesis also ponders on how this realization of Western ability to wage hybrid war can influence our outlook on the phenomenon itself. With this thesis, the author seeks to offer a new, factual outlook on hybrid warfare, unhindered by biases and emotional undertone which sadly mires many contributions to the academic debate on the topic. This new perspective on hybrid warfare, in authors personal opinion, can...
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The Response of the Federal Republic of Germany to the Russian Hybrid Threat: Case Study "Fall Lisa"
Pokorný, Jiří ; Handl, Vladimír (advisor) ; Lizcová, Zuzana (referee)
This master's thesis deals with the response of the Federal Republic of Germany to the Russian hybrid threat, which is examined using a case study of the so-called "Lisa case" from January 2016. The thesis aims to place the "Lisa case" in the context of German-Russian relations and hybrid threats in the security reality of the 21st century. Germany and Russia have long had a special relationship, which, however, fell into crisis after the Russian annexation of the Crimean Peninsula. The main goal of Russia's efforts to influence social and political development in Europe has become Germany, which must deal with new methods and strategies of hybrid warfare. The advent of hybrid threats is a challenge not only for Germany but also for its allies. Russia's view of hybrid threats proves that the term has different meanings for different actors. One of the manifestations of the Russian hybrid threat is the case of a thirteen-year-old girl of German-Russian origin Lisa F. who was missing in Berlin for several hours and allegedly raped by migrants. Although the German police promptly refuted the case, the Russian media misused the event to fuel an atmosphere of fear and uncertainty, especially among a significant minority of Russian Germans. The incident spread to the intergovernmental level when Russian...
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NATO and European Security in the East: The Impact of the Ukraine-Russia Conflict on NATO Doctrine and Ukrainian Strategy
Tymchuk, Halyna ; Záhora, Jakub (advisor) ; Ditrych, Ondřej (referee)
This diploma thesis will basically work with the concept of security, namely, the European secu- rity in recent years. Although Ukraine is not a NATO member, and Russia is NATO's distant neighbour, in this thesis I will prove that we should connect the events on Ukrainian border with European security. From the very onset of the Russian-Ukrainian conflict, NATO was firm in its support of Ukraine's sovereignty and territorial integrity within its internationally recognized borders. The Allies immediately condemned the illegal "legitimate annexation" of the Crimea to Russia in March 2014 and they have repeatedly stated that they would never recognize it as well. They also condemned deliberate destabilization in eastern Ukraine which was provoked by Russia with the use of its military intervention and militants' support. The crisis in Ukraine has proved to be a real turning point in Euro-Atlantic security since some senior Western politicians began to speak about changes in the guideline of European defense policy. Ukrainian crisis created new security situation in Europe and still requires attention, in- volvement and response from NATO. This crisis sharpened strategic misunderstanding between Russia and the West. It shows very clearly that Moscow and the West understand European security in...
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An Interplay of Narratives: How Do the Czech Journalists Perceive Securitized Disinformation?
Hroch, Jaroslav ; Bahenský, Vojtěch (advisor) ; Střítecký, Vít (referee)
The aim of this thesis is to contribute to theoretically sound concept of Peace Journalism, which combines theoretical foundations from two spheres: conflict and peace studies and media studies. Influence of journalists as intervening force and explaining factor with regard to (violent) conflict is neglected. However, Peace Journalism is not theoretically strong and builds upon dualistic definition vis-á-vis so-called War Journalism. The concept of Peace Journalism has to overcome this delamination in order to reflect theoretical underpinnings of conflict transformation theory and conflict analysis. Moreover, Peace Journalism has to differentiate media according to an involvement of given societies in a conflict. This offers an opportunity to specifically and accurately analyse news coverage of conflicts. Case studies analysing Czech coverage of Cyprus and Nagorno-Karabakh conflicts illustrates this approach. The coverage is essentially flat, distorts a reality of the conflict, pays attention to visual and physical aspects of the conflict and closes the conflicts in arbitrary time boundaries.
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Information War and IR
Nyč, Tomáš ; Ditrych, Ondřej (advisor) ; Záhora, Jakub (referee)
Diploma thesis is focused on the issue of the information warfare in context of debate about modern warfare. Firstly, thesis presented the debate of modern ways of warfare, which consists concepts such as hybrid warfare, non-linear warfare etc. Then presented three main concepts of information warfare in the context of this debate and within the three centres of contemporary power in the world (West, Russia and China). Western concept clearly separating war and peace, Russian complex concept of hybrid-information war and Chinese concept of three warafres. Subsequently, the thesis develops a thesis on the securitization of information warfare in the western environment (EU and NATO states). Securitization is understood as a rhetorical act that presents a phenomenon as a major security threat. In the context of the West, the information warfare has been to some extent securitized. This whole securitization is problematic if we look at the information warfare as a normal state of international relations, which are inherently conflicting and anarchic.
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Russian news websites in the Czech Republic and its reporting about the European Union
Podzimková, Pavlína ; Osvaldová, Barbora (advisor) ; Moravec, Václav (referee)
In recent years, many sources have referred to the Russian hybrid or information warfare against the West. Disinformation media is considered an important part of the Russian strategy. A large number of allegedly Russian disinformation websites have appeared in the Czech Republic after 2014, when tensions in Ukraine were escalated. In this bachelor thesis we will analyse three of them: Sputnik Czech Republic, Aeronet and AC24. This content analysis will focus especially on news about the European Union. The aim of this bachelor thesis is to confirm or disprove the hypothesis about the Russian propaganda effort to weaken the status of Western institutions. The thesis will also deal with methods of manipulation in the content of disinformation websites.
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Securitization of hybrid war in the Czech Republic
Hendrych, Daniel ; Kazharski, Aliaksei (advisor) ; Záhora, Jakub (referee)
The thesis is focused on currently widely discussed topic of the Russian hybrid warfare. It examines how the discourse surrounding this topic in the Czech Republic unfolded and how certain actors, primarily the think-tank European Values, have securitized the issue of the Russian hybrid warfare. The thesis is grounded in the securitization theory developed by the Copenhagen School. The international context is also discussed, since the discourses about the Russian hybrid warfare against the West are interconnected and the interest in this subject have risen after the annexation of Crimea and especially after the Russian interference into the U.S. presidential election in 2016. The case study of the documents related to the Russian hybrid warfare published by the think-tank European Values is central to this project. Institutional mistrust is a crucial underlying cause driving the success of disinformation campaigns and creates an opportunity for the hybrid efforts. However, this thesis attempts to explain, how securitization of the Russian hybrid warfare can be unhelpful or even detrimental to the goal of facilitating a greater trust in institutions.
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