‘Hacks, Trolls and Fake News: What’s Russia Got to Do With It?’ Panel Discussion

This panel discussion will examine media disinformation and manipulation strategies that have been attributed to and orchestrated by Russia vis-á-vis the U.S. and Ukraine. The panelists will address Russian Twitter bots, the state of media and journalism in contemporary Russia and the mediated participation of non-state actors in the Russia–Ukraine conflict.

Deen Freelon is an associate professor in the School of Media and Journalism at UNC-Chapel Hill. His research interests lie in the changing relationships between technology and politics, and encompass the study of social media with political applications. Vasily Gatov is a Russian journalist, researcher and fellow at the University of Southern California’s Annenberg Center. As a journalist, he covered the Chernobyl nuclear disaster, the 1991 failed coup’d’état and the Chechen wars. Tanya Lokot is an assistant professor in the School of Communications at Dublin City University, Ireland. Her research focuses on the interplay between technology, digital media and civic actors in the context of augmented protest, specifically in relation to Russia and Ukraine. Megan Squire is a professor of Computing Sciences at Elon University. Her research centers around the collection and curation of large amounts of data about how online communities work.

This event is co-presented by the UNC School of Media and Journalism and the Center for Slavic, Eurasian and East European Studies. Additional support provided by the College of Arts and Sciences