According to the annual report of the BIS from 2017, Czech republic is a target of Russian hybrid strategy. Alternative and disinformation media can be one part of this strategy, because of their spreading of propaganda and disinformation, which jeopardize strategic interests of the Czech republic. This diploma thesis has two main aims in this framework. The first aim is a description of the czech alternative and disinformation media scene in the context of Russian hybrid strategy. The second aim is to recognize motivations, which lead to this kind of revisionist activities. The first aim is based on the analysis of particular disinformation media in the context of information about Russian hybrid strategy and Russian strategic interests. The second aim is based on semi-structured interwievs with representatives of alternative media.

Ett grundläggande argument för yttrandefrihet är att ett fritt flöde av information leder till att felaktiga yttranden sållas bort. Till följd av internetutvecklingen har den idén satts på prov. Algoritmer gör det lätt att endast ta del av information som stödjer de åsikter människor redan har. Intag av information avgörs i allt större omfattning av värderingar och politiska åsikter. I det nya landskapet kan den faktabaserade informationen sållas bort till förmån för desinformation. Samtidigt som media har fått svårare att finansiera sin verksamhet pågår en infodemi enligt WHO. EU har uppställt krav på att plattformar ska motarbeta desinformation trots att det inte nödvändigtvis är olagligt innehåll. Myndigheten för press, radio och tv vill dra in mediestöd till medier som publicerar desinformation. Dessa åtgärder kan anses stå i strid med de värden som yttrande- och informationsfriheterna finns till för att skydda, så som medias frihet och oberoende. I uppsatsen utreds åtgärder som vidtagits mot desinformation i relation till yttrande- och informationsfriheterna.

Falsk information har blivit allt mer dominerande i det politiska samtalet och en metod för att motverka falsk information är att faktagranska nyheter och uttalanden. Denna studie undersöker om faktagranskning fungerar som metod för att motverka spridning av politiska uttalanden med falsk information. Studien genomfördes genom ett experiment i form av en enkätundersökning på studenter på Uppsala universitet.  Studien finner att faktagranskning fungerar som metod för att motverka falska uttalanden som sprids av politiker och politiska aktörer. Respondenter som erhåller faktagranskning i de enkätfrågor som innehöll desinformation är mer sannolika att svara i linje med faktagranskning jämfört med respondenter som endast får politiska uttalanden. Studien visar även att respondenterna påverkas av politiker men mer av faktagranskningen samt att faktagranskningen korrigerar inflytandet av politikers uttalanden. Resultatet visar att faktagranskning är en metod som kan minska tron på falska politiska uttalanden och är därmed betydande för att minska spridningen av falsk information.

En undersökning av Active Measurs Working Groups arbete under det kalla krigets slutskede, med fokus på en av deras rapporter som handlar om sovjetisk desinformation, propaganda och förfalskningar. Undersökningen innehåller även teorin kring misskreditering och trovärdighet. Även hur trovärdighet kan byggas upp och hur den kan förloras. Trovärdighet är svårt att bygga upp samtidigt som det är också är lätt att förlora. En stor del av uppsatsen ägnas åt Operation INFEKTION, som var en sovjetisk desinformationskampanj om var och hur AIDS uppstod. Enligt kampanjen skapades aids artificiellt i ett amerikanskt laboratorium. Active Measurs Working Group var en grupp vars uppdrag var att avslöja sovjetisk desinformation och att samtidigt förminska trovärdighet hos de aktörerna som spred desinformation och propaganda, som exempelvis Jakob Segal kunde ha, i hans påstådda maktställning inom den vetenskapliga arenan när det gällde aids ursprung. Undersökningen tar också upp hur Sovjetunionen använde sig av båda religiösa grupper samt fredsgrupper för att föra fram sin doktrin i skydd av dessa grupper. Avslutningsvis tas förfalskningar upp där Active Measures Working Group avslöjar cirka fyra förfalskningar, och hur de kom fram till att dessa var just förfalskningar.

Misinformation and desinformation is a big problem in the social media landscape. It has been recently discovered that a Swedish political party has been spreading hate and desinformation through anonymous social media accounts to gain votes and to act against minorities in Sweden. To combat the issue with desinformation the media users need to have the ability to locate false facts and underlying motives from the source.This study's aims to discover how Swedish media students describe and reason about source criticism on TikTok with a qualitative interview study. The study has three research questions that is how Swedish media students describe the characteristics of TikTok, how they describe their strategies for being source critical on TikTok and how they reason about the connection with their education and their ability to be source critical on social media. The theoretical framework is media literacy and social media literacy that helps to analyze the interviews and to make relevant conclusions of the material. The study discovers that the media students are aware of TikTok´s characteristics and how to deal with them and they show a great ability to be media literate on social media. But they also witness a difficulty to be critical to content on TikTok because of the great exposure of information and the eternal scrolling on for you page.

The purpose of this study is to investigate, through focus groups, whether people aged 50-80 take a source-critical approach to online information. The study is limited and relates only to Facebook. In addition, the perceived truth value of re-shared information will also be investigated and compared to the perceived truth value in direct contact with the published information. The following questions will be the focus of the study; - How are older people affected by disinformation on Facebook? - What effect does re-shared disinformation on Facebook have on older people? - To what extent do older people have a source-critical approach on Facebook? - Does the source-critical approach among older people differ regarding digitally published information compared to analogically published information? Title: Digital citizenship: A qualitative study of how elders relate to source criticism on Facebook Author: Rasmus Wickström Jäder Course, term and year: Scientific essay, sixth term, 2024. Number of words: 8523 Methodolgy and material: The study is mainly based on three focus groups between four and six people aged 50–80 will participate in each, thus providing a response base of 12–18 people. The selection was done through a snowball sampling. Each focus group was conducted digitally, via Messenger, and moderated by the writer who continuously used an interview guide to support the valid approach. All conversations were recorded and transcribed to summarize the discussions as accurately as possible, which further aided in summarizing and analyzing the data. As a complement to the focus groups, a semiotic image analysis was also carried out. Main result: The results show that older people are not necessarily less critical of sources than the younger generation. The majority of respondents were highly critical of the sharing of posts on Facebook and did not seem to be significantly affected by disinformation on the platform. Furthermore, some of the respondents highlighted the importance of analogue media in the question of taking a source-critical approach to online news and its major place in everyday media consumption.

This thesis examines how traditional media could reinforce its position as a reliable source of information, overcoming the huge amount of misinformation in public space. First, the thesis analyzes the concept of fake news, examining different concepts of this expression across American and Anglo-Saxon environments. In the following chapters, the thesis presents a link between trust in media and the spread of fake news, outlines psychological factors that allow for fake news to be spread easily and highlights the role of media literacy. Next chapters list the specific ways in which traditional media can fight against fake news, for example through slow journalism or factual verification. That is how the thesis gets to the three analyzed fact-checking departments, which were established as a part of foreign traditional media: ARD Faktenfinder, BBC Reality Check and RFE / RL / VOA Polygraph.info. These departments were founded between 2015 and 2017 and perceive verification of information as an independent journalistic output. Using semi-structured interviews, the thesis examines how these departments work, how they define fake news, what are their future plans or whether they actively contribute to the development of media literacy. Comparative analysis has shown that none of the departments has...

Information is power in the 21st century. The on-going “information revolution” has forced states to adapt to the new world arena and to the following demand of being able to use information strategically. This study aimed to contribute to the lack of research regarding the Swedish case, and thus give a greater understanding of how Sweden tackles information warfare campaigns. The study examined two cases: The host-nation-agreement between Sweden and NATO (2016) and the Swedish military exercise, Aurora 17 (2017). The study applied a qualitative analytical method to: firstly, identify the Swedish strategic narrative by using governmental policy documents; secondly, identify the Russian intrusive narrative by looking at two cases using editorial articles of RT and Sputnik International, and finally analyze the Swedish way of handling the intrusive narrative, using an ideal type analysis method.  The study confirmed that Russia, through state-owned media, intervened and tried to undermine the Swedish strategic narrative in both cases. The study concluded that Sweden’s strategy to counter these actions is moving from a previously passive approach – to a more antagonistic approach towards the sender of the intruding narrative. However, the study also concluded that Sweden is lacking a coherent strategy to handling these kinds of threats.

Crisis communication as a scientific field is mainly focused on organizations and profit driven companies. There is a lack of research about crisis communication for governments. There are few studies to draw conclusions from. The studies which have been made are done in 1986 after the chernobyl crisis, and after the tsunami crisis in Thailand year 2004. The world has changed since then and the way people communicate has changed as well. Social media is now the main way for people to communicate. Social media also allows people to access endless information at any time. The world has turned into an information society. In the year of 2020 Swedish authorities were facing a big crisis. The corona pandemic entered Sweden and ever since Swedish authorities have been dealing with crisis communication. The main goal is to provide the citizens of Sweden reliable information regarding the corona virus before anyone else does. The authorities themselves do not use social media to communicate. The citizens of Sweden do though. Social media is flooded by disinformation which can reach the Swedish citizens and cause the citizens to question the legitimacy of the authorities. The purpose of the present study is to investigate how Swedish government’s communication strategies have been received by users of discussion groups on Facebook. The study draws upon primary data collected from ten interviews conducted with members of selected Facebook groups that shows a critical view towards Swedish authorities. The results were analyzed using theories such as framing theory, legitimacy theory and the SMCC- framework. The results indicate that the users have a growing distrust towards Swedish authorities

Studiens syfte har varit att undersöka ansvarsfrågan utifrån informationspåverkan i Sverige. Uppsatsen har utgått från den forskning som har gjorts kring ansvar och maktfördelningen mellan staten samt individen. Genom en kvantitativ och en kvalitativ textanalys har ansvarsfrågan undersökts i kommittédirektiv, statliga offentliga utredningar och propositioner mellan åren 2002 och 2018. Målet med den första kvantitativa analysen har varit att utreda hur frekvent diskussionen har varit kring ansvar när det kommer till att hantera informationspåverkan. Resultatet av studien visar på att ansvarsfrågan kom upp mer frekvent under början och slutet av den undersökta perioden, med en ganska tydlig svacka kring 2010. Den kvalitativa analysen har syftat till att utreda vilken aktör som man har ansett har ansvar för att bemöta informationspåverkan. Resultatet pekar tydligt på att man i det undersökta materialet har betraktat myndigheterna och staten som de viktigaste aktörerna i kampen mot informationspåverkan. Detta öppnar upp för vidare forskning kring bland annat varför ansvarsfrågan vid informationspåverkan har blivit allt viktigare mot slutet av tiotalet.