From national identity to state legitimacy: Mobilizing digitally networked publics in eastern Ukraine

Abstract

Social media enable broad and diverse publics to mobilize around a shared collective identity. In this article, the authors use social movement literature and studies of peace and conflict to foreground the role of platform-mediated communication in creating a national identity in a fragile state. We argue that, by affording activists with a possibility of public, yet anonymous interactions, social media may play a crucial role in conferring state legitimacy during a violent conflict. Investigating the case of Mariupol, Ukraine, where a small group of citizens employed social media to support and legitimize the Ukrainian state among the city population, the authors illuminate the use of new media affordances to construct a national identity among digitally networked publics, mobilizing support for a threatened state.

The transformation of participatory warfare: The role of narratives in connective mobilization in the Russia–Ukraine war

“…However, on the other hand, these narratives may also lead to demoralization. In this case, the role of narratives of limited statehood may depend on the strength of national identity, as highlighted by Boichak and Jackson (2020), and on the construction of the external threat. If the threat is considered insufficiently existential, we may expect more passivity.…”

“…For instance, Lokot (2017) explores the role of narratives in the mobilization of the Ukrainian hacktivist community. Boichak and Jackson (2020) explore the role of social media in the construction of the state's legitimacy in the face of external threat, based on an analysis of online communities in Mariupol. On the one hand, narratives that undermine state legitimacy create 'favourable conditions for externally backed separatism'.…”

‘They say we are all zombies’: Rethinking the role of audiences in a mediatized international conflict

“…Researchers report the rising expectations of publics to have a say in what was previously elitist diplomacy- and security-related matters (Abdul-Nabi, 2015; Nohrstedt and Ottosen, 2015; Robinson et al, 2017b). The participative war paradigm (Merrin, 2019) has also increased interest in audience research in the field of media and conflict studies (Smets, 2018), with some of the recent scholarship on the Russia-Ukraine conflict echoing this pattern: for example, Wiggins (2016) study on the consumption of Russian and Ukrainian internet users, (re-)production and distribution of memetic social media content as a form of political endorsement and critique, and Boichak and Jackson’s (2020) study of the utilization of Facebook by Ukrainian activists as a tool of public mobilization.…”

“The war phone”: mobile communication on the frontline in Eastern Ukraine

“…However, Shklovski and Wulff’s broad focus let many important aspects slip under radar, which the present study also demonstrates. Boichak ( 2021 ) as well as Boichak and Jackson ( 2019 ) highlighted how Ukrainian civilian activists in the warzone used technological affordances to mobilize themselves as a networked public and rearticulate their national identity. Yet, how does that look like for the military?…”