Research

In this section you will find a reading list encompassing a wide range of studies, articles and reports relating to the spread of pro-Kremlin disinformation.

Whether you want a general introduction, to learn about the Kremlin’s attempts to influence elections, or investigate how one single false message gets spread via a wide network of websites – this is the place to start.

How we collect the material

The selection of works keeps a balance between academic depth and reputability, but also a breadth of perspectives and interests beyond the academy. We have established quality control measures and the material selection was based on the five issue areas below.

Issue area 1
Threat actors

This area is dedicated to the activities of major threat actors, namely Russia and China and their aims, motives and capacities.

Issue area 2
Methods & Tools

This area captures the methods and tools deployed by threat actors to manipulate information: social media, narratives, emerging tech etc.

Issue area 3
Interference Areas

This area focuses on the socio-political areas targeted by threat actors: social cohesion, political processes, health, security and foreign policy.

Issue area 4
Impact

This issue area centres on the effects of FIMI (foreign information manipulations and interference) in terms of outcomes: cognitive impacts, social and political division, soft power projection etc.

Issue area 5
Responses

This area classifies the types of responses to FIMI (foreign information manipulations and interference) by a range of stakeholders: regulatory, proactive and self-regulatory, reactive responses and policy recommendations.

Filters

Threat Actors:
Methods & Tools:
Interference Areas:
Impacts:
Responses:
169 results
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2023 | Georgetown University Press | Book
Subversion – The Strategic Weaponization of Narratives
By: Andreas Krieg
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A book examining how state and nonstate actors take advantage of the information space to sow political chaos with strategic-level effects. Offers some recommendations on bolstering resilience in democratic societies.

2023 | RAND Corporation | Report
The Rise of Generative AI and the Coming Era of Social Media Manipulation 3.0: Next-Generation Chinese Astroturfing and Coping with Ubiquitous AI
By: William Marcellino, Nathan Beauchamp-Mustafaga, Amanda Kerrigan, Lev Navarre Chao, Jackson Smith
View summary

A report on the implications of generative AI for information warfare, arguing that the technology poses a potential national security threat in terms of the risk of misuse by Russia, China and other adversaries in social media manipulation.

2023 | Journal of Information Warfare | Article
Evaluating the Ambiguous Cognitive Terrain: A Framework to Clarify Disinformation
By: Brian Murphy
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An analysis of the reasons for the ambiguity about the definition of information warfare explains why national security professionals must develop a framework to identify disinformation as an element of cognitive warfare.

2023 | Pacific Focus | Article
Cyberwarfare and the Weaponization of Information in US–China 21st-Century Geostrategic Rivalry
By: Er-Win Tan, Sofiya Sayankina
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An analysis of China and the United States’s use of information as a weapon of statecraft in pursuit of global influence and geostrategic objectives.

2023 | War in Ukraine. Media and Emotions | Article
Information and Information Technologies in the 2022 Russian-Ukrainian War
By: Adam R. Bartnicki, Elżbieta Kużelewska, Michał Ożóg
View summary

An analysis of Russian efforts to distort reality in the ongoing war against Ukraine and Ukraine’s effective countermeasures.

2023 | The MIT Press | Book
Managing Meaning in Ukraine: Information, Communication, and Narration since the Euromaidan Revolution
By: Göran Bolin, Per Ståhlberg
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An investigation of the intersection of state politics, corporate business and civil activism in information management in Ukraine between 2013 and 2022.

2023 | Journal of Information Warfare | Article
Destabilising a Regime to Support a Military Campaign, and Vice Versa
By: Jesse Burdick
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An article on China’s use of information warfare to destabilise foreign regimes in the midst of a potential military or political crisis with democratic governments (drawing lessons from Japan’s experience during the Russo-Japanese War in 1904-05).

2023 | Journal of Information Warfare | Article
The Space of Influence: Developing a New Method to Conceptualise Foreign Information Manipulation and Interference on Social Media
By: Paul Magnus Hjertvik Buvarp
View summary

A study adapting ‘morphological’ theory to conceptualise social media disinformation threatening democratic processes along five parameters: spread strategy, information channelling, market targeting, presented source, and operational openness.

2023 | RAND Corporation | Article
The Nightingale Versus the Bear: What Persuasion Research Reveals About Ukraine’s and Russia’s Messaging on the War
By: Alyssa Demus, Khrystyna Holynska, Krystyna Marcinek
View summary

A report exploring the comparative success of Russia’s and Ukraine’s information campaigins arguing that the popular discourse professing that Russia has lost the information war is oversimplified.

2023 | Great Power Cyber Competition: Competing and Winning in the Information Environment | Chapter
Toward a Whole-of-Society Framework for Countering Disinformation
By: JD Maddox, Casi Gentzel, Adela Levis
View summary

A study of measures to combat disinformation, including resilience, regulations, public diplomacy, strategic signalling and counter messaging.

2023 | The Cyber Defense Review (Army Cyber Institute) | Article
Weaponizing Words: Using Technology to Proliferate Information Warfare
By: Craig Douglas Albert, Samantha Mullaney, Joseph Huitt, Lance Y. Hunter, Lydia Snider
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A review of ways that the United States could improve its capacity in information warfare against China, with policy recommendations.

2023 | Business Information Review | Article
(Dis)information Warfare: Risks for Businesses
By: Luke Tredinnick
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An analysis of the threat of information warfare for commercial organisations and the role of information professionals in mitigating them.

2023 | Cyber Security Policies and Strategies of the World's Leading States | Chapter
Cognitive Warfare: A Psychological Strategy to Manipulate Public Opinion
By: Szde Yu
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A study of cognitive warfare and psychological strategies seeking to gradually influence the targeted public’s beliefs, opinions and perceptions with an empirical focus on the China-Taiwan relationship.

2023 | Journal of Information Warfare | Article
Combatting Privacy Information Warfare: A New Incident Response Framework
By: Sean McElroy, Lisa McKee
View summary

A study proposing new conceptual models and a methodology to guide the mitigation of privacy-related harms and tactics of sophisticated threat actors in information warfare.

2023 | Comparative Strategy | Article
Russian Full Spectrum Conflicts and Information Warfare as Complex Adaptive Systems: The 2014 Crimean Case Study
By: Riccardo Allegri
View summary

A study of asymmetrical information tactics through the lens of Complex Adaptive Systems that seeks to demonstrate how, by controlling the information flow during the Russian annexation of Crimea, Moscow applied complexity to the adversary on the one hand and stabilised the Crimean social system on the other.

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Disclaimer

Cases in the EUvsDisinfo database focus on messages in the international information space that are identified as providing a partial, distorted, or false depiction of reality and spread key pro-Kremlin messages. This does not necessarily imply, however, that a given outlet is linked to the Kremlin or editorially pro-Kremlin, or that it has intentionally sought to disinform. EUvsDisinfo publications do not represent an official EU position, as the information and opinions expressed are based on media reporting and analysis of the East Stratcom Task Force.

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