The war in Ukraine is being played out in the broadcast media as well as on the battlefield.
As in previous conflicts, people are being presented with different versions of the truth, with censorship being applied by all sides to a greater or lesser extent.
There are of course stand-out moments when the mask falls. Like, for instance, the protest on Russia’s Channel 1 by the journalist Marina Ovsyannikova, who interrupted a live broadcast to hold up a banner protesting against the war. When subsequently interviewed by the BBC, she said that Russians are zombified by propaganda and should stop watching state media.
The hacking or interruption of broadcasts is certainly a way of getting your message across. Recent examples have seen Ukraina 24, which is being distributed widely, show a message allegedly from President Zelensky calling on Ukrainians to lay down their arms. The president quickly responded on YouTube, dismissing the hack as “childish provocation” and saying that the only people that should surrender are the Russians.
The Ukrainian regulator National Council has meanwhile said that on March 17 Russians tried to hack several sites of Ukrainian TV and radio companies, using Hetzner hosting in Germany and the advertising systems redtram, Mixadvert and Adpartner. In most cases, they attempted to place Russian symbols on the companies’ websites.
In another hack, a broadcast of the Champions League volleyball match between Berlin Recycling Volleys and Trentino Itas on Russian TV was interrupted by a short report on the war. Indeed, several Russian TV stations, including Channel 1, Rossiya 24 and Moscow 24, as well as the country’s leading OTT platform ivi, have at some stage since the start of the conflict found themselves targeted by hackers.
These actions are likely to continue for the foreseeable future, placing the broadcast media very much on the front line of the conflict.
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