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Introducing Yuriy Zaliznyak, CERi Researcher-in-Residence

January 07, 2025
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This article is authored by Yuriy Zaliznyak, who is SFU CERi's latest Researcher-in-Residence. Yuriy is set to be with CERi from July 2024 until June 2025. His main research interests center around journalism standards and information manipulation, media ethics, social media, and cognitive warfare. 

Journalism standards are considered to be something granted and stable – the firm fundament for the “guardian dogs of democracy”, newsrooms and separate reporters worldwide. But what if the current situation in the world is changing too rapidly not to transform these standards in a new surrounding of liquid modernity? What if some media representatives and editors are using the good-old standard of the profession as the ultimate excuse for not going deeper into the story, paying not enough attention to its details or lacking the proper understanding of the context? What if their audience also “joins the party”, making the situation more complicated for all parties and their natural interests? 

These and some other related questions are in the scope of my scholarly interests as CERi’s researcher-in-residence for this academic year. For the last several years, working as an associate professor of the New Media Department at Ivan Franko National University of Lviv in Ukraine, I was mainly concentrating on the influence of international reporting standards and ethics in journalism on the citizen journalism development. 

Now, I would like to focus on the Ukrainian communities in North America and Europe, especially those, who were affected by the Russian war against Ukraine and even provoked after the full-scale invasion in early 2022. Millions of Ukrainians have become actual refugees, emigrated or are under protection of different states worldwide. Besides trying to settle down, find some job and secure a decent and safe future for their children, they are also communicating a lot – among themselves, with their friends and relatives in Ukraine, with representatives of the previous waves of Ukrainian emigration in certain countries, and with host communities as well. But what is the quality of this communication and how media influence the process of these people’s adaptation, if they even care about it? 

One of my research focuses is on the Ukrainian community groups on social media and messengers like Facebook or Telegram, that became the platforms where different stories from mainstream media are being disseminated or could be found at the same time. The shift in professional approach to reporting by Ukrainian media is quite understandable: during the war, the national interest prevails the people’s right to know. This topic was described in my recent chapter on Global Journalism in Comparative Perspective publication. 

The chapter argues that only significant intellectual and critical development of the state’s democratic institutions and society, in general, may enable effective mechanisms of pathological agenda and commentaries elimination without risk of becoming a nondemocratic country—even under war conditions. 

But I am not considering the media’s audience or public interest only as a victim of information manipulation and particular media’s temptation not to serve it as a primary client. Moreover, I would like to underline the equal responsibility of media users and “the people, formally known as the audience” for the consequences of their participation in media processes: especially, when they are not resisting clickbait headlines, spreading fakes, misinformation, and cherish post-truth through emotional battles in comments, social media profiles and groups. 

Nowadays, it is easy to point at some nameless trolls or bots that are operating online, making them responsible for the disorientation and frustration of the online media consumers worldwide. Even big media outlets have already proved their incapability to completely avoid this malicious influence. But mostly, they act as if the editorial guidelines and professional standards are granting them some universal protection from any serios deception and danger to be used as an instrument against public interests, truthfulness and transparency. 

The justification of the current agenda by professional media with their efforts to provide the audience with the content based on the people’s demand and their interest seems to be a big challenge. If the reporters and editors are relying on the social media groups and profiles analysis as one of the core sources, it might be too problematic. As both sides here may become victims of cognitive warfare, that distorts their perception of reality, and sometimes is more definitive in contemporary hybrid conflicts all over the world. 

Therefore, one of my goals in this research is to bring the ordinary social media users of particular communities and professional media workers to the mutual reconsideration of the actually effective standards of communication. I believe that the perspective of this new standards normality is achievable, if all the actors understand their vulnerability in the face of information manipulation and will freely reorganize their protocols of mass media content production and consumption. 

The starting point here could be couple of questions each individual, including experienced editors and reporters, may ask themselves before broadcasting, liking or sharing some news: How do I know that, what makes me trust the source to take responsibility for further processing of this information or making it’s a part of my life, belief and worldview? 

Maybe, the project idea sounds too ambitious, too raw or too theoretical at the moment. But in practice, when one is using a doubt as a method, there might be some fruitful results. In this case, against the background of several years of a new continental war in Europe, I hope, certain communities, including the Ukrainians dispersed all over the world, and professional media outlets may benefit a lot from profound reconsideration of conservative approach to their daily standards of information and communication engagement. Because, as we can see, neglecting of reality, relying on the emotional component, and selfish interests may lead civilized people to the barbaric armed engagement in these post-enlightened times.

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