With the new challenges of the digital world associated with disinformation, data breaches, and cybercrimes (Cadwalladr & Graham-Harrison, 2018; Connolly et al., 2016; Shipley & Bowker, 2013) many countries nowadays discuss approaches to Internet regulation. In Ukraine, which faced propaganda tactics employed by Russia as a part of the Ukrainian-Russian conflict (Yurkova, 2018), the need for information security in recent years became a major challenge. In 2017, authorities of Ukraine addressed the challenge by introducing sanctions to the most-used Russian web-platforms, including social networks Vkontakte and Odnoklassniki, search engine Yandex, and many other services. This study analyzed the discourse that was formed around the decision. The work incorporates the model of critical discourse analysis by Fairclough (1995a) and framing analysis by Pan & Kosicki (1993). This qualitative study analyzed materials from Ukrainian online media, TV stories, user comments, and political speeches from 16th-17th May 2017 – the dates when the decision on blocking of Russian web-sources was announced to the Ukrainian public. The research answers the questions about the dominant discourses in society regarding the approach of the authorities to Internet regulation, the main arguments and counter-arguments, and media framing. The results show that the discussion was locked in a trap of two dominant discourses of freedom of speech and national security, whereas alternative measures to restrictions were not represented on the public agenda.
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:UPSALLA1/oai:DiVA.org:uu-414735 |
| Date | January 2020 |
| Creators | Sliesarieva, Anna |
| Publisher | Uppsala universitet, Institutionen för informatik och media |
| Source Sets | DiVA Archive at Upsalla University |
| Language | English |
| Detected Language | English |
| Type | Student thesis, info:eu-repo/semantics/bachelorThesis, text |
| Format | application/pdf |
| Rights | info:eu-repo/semantics/openAccess |
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