“Liberators” vs “Occupiers”: the importance of subtle propaganda

We’re acutely aware at the moment that conflict is multipolar. In addition to the on-the-ground fighting, there is also fighting in the information sphere, from hacking to trolling and disinformation. And so just as it’s worth taking a look at developments in armour, or what, say, tyre prints can tell us about an army, so it’s worth looking at information and how it is wielded.

And people do. In my discipline, analytic philosophy of language, people pay attention to things like propaganda and, for example, ‘fake news’ has a rather gigantic literature already (that goes beyond philosophy into other social sciences and I’m sure beyond).

People such as Jason Stanley propose ingenious theories of how language might be exploited to bring our changes, in the world or hearers’ minds, that are contrary to what those hearers want, or would rationally accept. His colleague Timothy Snyder tells us about new tri-lingual coinages, like ‘Rashism’, which denotes a particular Russian sort of fascism.

While I certainly think that work is good and valuable, one thing to note is that it is, for want of a better word, fancy. Stanley proposes complicated mechanisms involving cutting edge work in semantics; and who wouldn’t be impressed with the trilingual punning?

(Examples could be multiplied. A bestiary of terms has grown up to talk about ways of misusing language, such as code-words or figleaves or bullshitting (in the technical sense) or hermeneutical injustice.)

My aim here is to push, slightly, against the fancy-tide. My claim is that the uses of language most to be concerned about are not the eye-catching or theoretically loaded ones — not the ones that make for a good paper or an article. They are more mundane. I will first explain this before illustrating it, briefly and imperfectly, with a couple of examples from the Russian and the Ukrainian language discussion of the war.

People will tell you propaganda started, ish, with this guy, Eddie Bernays, a relative of Freud. licence.

The view I’m defending, as I understand it, isn’t original. It comes from George Lakoff’s seminal Don’t Think Of An Elephant, and turns on the notion of framing. The idea is that — and here I might be embellishing or misremembering Lakoff — in talking about notably politics, one always comes at it from a perspective, one will use that perspective to try and do things with words, and an important goal for political communicators (which in a sense is all of us) is to be careful of what words and thus what perspectives you let in. Writing during Bush II, he was interested in such locutions as the Republicans’ ‘tax relief’ (oh, what a halcyon age, when the problem with Republicans was merely fiscal!) ‘Tax relief’ suggests that taxation is a burden, something one would (and perhaps should) be rid of, like haemorrhoids. What really annoyed Lakoff was that the dems also used ‘tax relief’, even though they don’t think taxation is something one should be relieved of. For him, that was just falling into the GOP trap, by letting their framing of the issue, well, frame, the discussion from the get-go.

These sorts of things, the — to borrow a phrase from a different slice of Lakoff, metaphors we live by — are where we need to be careful because if we’re not we can find ourselves starting off on an uneven playing field by taking over the framing, the way of seeing, of the topic with which we disagree. Next, I’ll very provisionally suggest an example of this in the Russian invasion of Ukraine (note I’ve just used a particular framing by talking of ‘invasion’ instead of ‘war’ or even ‘special military operation’, the Kremlin’s preferred phrase: note looking at alternative framings doesn’t commit one to a relativism about the different frames, one can still think one particular framing is right and one wrong.)

A couple of months ago I started looking at Russian and Ukrainian newswires to see if I could develop a quantitative as opposed to a qualitative theory of propaganda (I wrote about it a few times here). One thing I noticed early on was the prevalence in Ukrainian media of the word оккупанты which is basically ‘occupant’ in Cyrillic letters, thus ‘invader’ or ‘occupier’, to describe the Russian army. Last night, scrolling Russian telegram, as one does, I noticed the prevalence of освобождение, etymology ‘liberation’ to describe the Russian army’s actions.

One thing to note is that both these terms are comparatively neutral in register. They are not curse words and are impersonal: the Russian TASS and the Ukrainian Ukrinform news agencies use them, respectively, frequently. In a sense, they are different from things like ‘Rassism’ or ‘nazi’ (common among Russian pundits) or other derogatory terms for the groups.

But it’s exactly in this neutrality, I reckon, that the propagandistic work can work. They imply entirely different framings! One who constantly reads about liberation of a given place will feel very differently than someone who reads about its occupation — it has a notable framing, but is easily overlooked.

I attempted to see if this was born out in data. I think it arguably kind of is. I haven’t looked as closely as I ought to, but what I did was, for each word, and for the archives of the Telegram channels from 24/2 to 24/7, take a look at how the occurred and the surrounding context (the preceding and following five words: I’m thus doing a variation of collocating, but — perhaps unwisely — -a roll-my-own version that targeted exactly what I was looking for).

More work needs to be done, but here is some preliminary findings I think are quite interesting. Mariupol is of course a crucial town and one that at least was an object of Western attention. How do the media talk about it?

Well, here’s some from the Ukrainian Ukrinform. There’s more, but my patience for copying/pasting from google translate at 10pm is limited. The reason they’re mostly gibberish sentence fragments is because that’s what it searches, and if you’re keen you can copy this into Telegram for the respective channel and get the original full context:

2022–04–10
АПНьюс . Про нелюдські злочини окупантов , наш незламний Мариуполь
APNews. About the inhumane crimes of the occupiers, our indomitable Mariupol
2022–04–11
Новые страшные кадры зруйнованого росийского окупантам Мариупольского драматического театра Джерело
New scary footage of the Mariupol Drama Theater destroyed by the Russian occupiers Source
2022–04–11
На тли новин , що окупант скинув на Маріуполь невідому
Against the background of the news that the occupier dropped an unknown weapon on Mariupol
2022–04–15
🔺 Також у заблокированному Маріуполі окупанти запроваджують перепустки , щоб
Also in the blocked Mariupol, the occupiers are introducing passes to
2022–04–26
из Мариуполя , яких российских окупанти вивезли с міста ,
from Mariupol, who were taken out of the city by the Russian occupiers,
2022–04–27
по-перше , на территории Мариуполя окупают масовано обстрілювати та

firstly, on the territory of Mariupol, the occupying forces shelled massively and
2022–04–27
попередньою информацию, були переданы окупантам директоркою Мариупольского краєзнавчого музея

preliminary information, were handed over to the occupiers by the director of the Mariupol Regional History Museum
2022–05–02
Мариуполи люди воспевны , що окупантии взяли Киев — радникThe people of Mariupol are sure that the occupiers have taken Kyiv — councilor

And now TASS, and again I note this is limited by patience and there are maybe 20 more like this:

2022–03–28
заявил , что до полного освобождения Мариуполя осталось совсем недолго
declared that it was not long before the complete liberation of Mariupol
2022–03–28
неонацистскими символами обнаружены в подвалах освобожденных зданий Мариуполя ;
Neo-Nazi symbols were found in the basements of liberated Mariupol;
2022–04–05
Жители освобожденных микрорайонов Мариуполя постепенно выходят
Residents of liberated neighborhoods of Mariupol are gradually leaving
2022–04–07
Мариуполь будет освобожден от националистических украинских батальонов
Mariupol will be liberated from nationalist Ukrainian battalions

2022–04–21
Все участники освобождения Мариуполя — герои ,
All participants in the liberation of Mariupol are heroes,
2022–05–03
МЧС ДНР медалью `` За освобождение Мариуполя ‘’ , передает
The Ministry of Emergencies of the DPR presents the medal ``For the liberation of Mariupol’’

And here’s Kherson, first Ukrinform:

2022–02–26
На Херсонщині російські окупанти розстріляли журналіста Про це
2022–03–16
місті Скадовськ на Херсонщині російські окупанти викрали міського голову Олександра
2022–03–17
Під Херсоном окупанти розграбували та зруйнували сімейну
2022–03–20
Херсон . Українці кричать російським окупантам , щоб ті поверталися
2022–03–22
❗️🔴На Херсонщині окупанти планують вводити в обіг
2022–03–28
❗️На Херсонщині окупанти викрали голову
2022–03–29
Херсонської та Харківської областей російські окупанти продовжують терор стосовно місцевого

English:

2022–02–26
Russian occupiers shot a journalist in Kherson Oblast About this
2022–03–16
In the city of Skadovsk in the Kherson Region, Russian invaders kidnapped the mayor of the city, Oleksandr
2022–03–17
The occupiers looted and destroyed the family home near Kherson
2022–03–20
Kherson. Ukrainians are shouting at the Russian occupiers to return
2022–03–22
❗️🔴In Kherson Oblast, the occupiers plan to put it into circulation
2022–03–28
❗️In the Kherson region, the occupiers stole a head
2022–03–29
The Russian occupiers of the Kherson and Kharkiv regions continue to terrorize the local population

And TASS:

2022–04–28
Возвращение освобожденной от украинских националистов Херсонской
2022–06–02
первую партию молочной продукции в освобожденные районы Херсонской и Запорожской
2022–06–02
людям вернуться из Зеленодольска в освобожденную ВС РФ Херсонскую область
2022–06–27
Дню молодежи в Новой Каховке освобожденной Херсонской области возобновил работу
2022–07–01
Крыма с Россией отправился из освобожденного Херсона на полуостров ,
2022–07–01
Крыма с Россией отправился из освобожденного Херсона на полуостров ,
2022–07–15
ЛНР , а также на освобожденных территориях Запорожской и Херсонской

English:

2022–04–28
The return of Kherson liberated from Ukrainian nationalists
2022–06–02
the first batch of dairy products to the liberated regions of Kherson and Zaporozhye
2022–06–02
people to return from Zelenodolsk to Kherson region liberated by the RF Armed Forces
2022–06–27
Youth Day in Nova Kakhovka of the liberated Kherson region resumed work
2022–07–01
Crimea with Russia went from the liberated Kherson to the peninsula,
2022–07–01
Crimea with Russia went from the liberated Kherson to the peninsula,
2022–07–15
LPR, as well as in the liberated territories of Zaporozhye and Kherson

I think this ought to support my hypothesis, at least somewhat. The probative value is weak — to show an interesting effect I would need to somehow show perhaps that the names of places frequently occurred with frame-neutral descriptions, and I’m not sure even how to go about that (maybe compare neutral words for ‘army’ like ‘sil’ (in Russian) and such?).

But my think the view defended here — look for propaganda in the small and everyday and not the big — is deserving of attention, and perhaps some variation on the method used here could substantiate it.