"Voices from the Island”: Informational annexation of Crimea and transformations of journalistic practices

This paper explores the impact of annexation of Crimea by Russia on journalistic practices. It argues that, besides censorship, surveillance and physical threats from pro-Russian authorities, journalistic work in the area is challenged by legal and infrastructural factors such as the absence of legal and financial protections for Ukrainian journalists traveling to Crimea, lack of holistic digital security within media organizations, and increased Internet censorship in Crimea. By analyzing the risk perceptions and digital security practices of exiled and Crimean civic journalists, this paper explores how informational annexation challenges journalistic work on the infrastructural and organizational level, enabling the rise of civic journalism, and how it affects journalists' individual digital security practices. In the context of the current Russian invasion of Ukraine, this research provides insights into some of the informational annexation tactics used by Russians in the occupied Ukrainian territories.

Sample

In order to understand the effects of annexation on hybrid media professionals (Pantti MK, 2016), it is necessary to analyze not only the individual “adaptive strategies” of exiled or displaced journalists (as in Zeveleva, 2019), but also the background sociotechnical dynamics, the “battle for infrastructures” (DeNardis, 2012) enabled by the parties involved in the conflict. We argue that media researchers must pay attention to legal and infrastructural factors when researching journalistic practices in war-torn areas. This paper analyzes how the governance by infrastructures' of Crimean Internet affects the work of displaced journalists and reporters covering events in Crimea, the new digital threats they are facing, and the strategies they adopt in order to minimize risks associated with their work in this new sociotechnical context. A thorough analysis of the subsequent infrastructural processes is needed in order to properly assess the impact of armed conflicts on journalistic work and security.

Main Findings

Crimea has been a "laboratory of information control" for Russian authorities; a very specific and local censorshop was applied to Crimean media (especially, to Crimean tatar websites); journalistic standards have changed and many media professionals have turned into freelancers. The network of civic informants and freelance reporters continues operating despite lack of support from Ukrainian government or from established media organizations. It ensures coverage of main political events, such as persecution of Crimean Tatar activists, thanks to a decentralized and informal structure involving freelance reporters, human rights activists, friendly Russian independent media who offer their coverage and legal help, and, of course, local activists and civic journalists from Crimean Tatar community and other active communities pre-established in Crimea. This specific configuration in which Crimean media operates creates new forms of digital and operational risks. Throughout the duration of Russian-Ukrainian conflict risk perceptions and the consequent self-defense practices of journalists have been considerably changing. The resulting security culture is described by several respondents as “crisis-driven” or “experience-based”, which means that practices of digital self-defense are not based on institutionalized support or systematic trainings, but on personal or second-hand experiences of threats and a patchwork of know-hows coming from different sources, including new intermediaries such as “IT-champions” or other informal sources.