Social media: what is their role in shaping identity and mediating conflict? Talk with Gregory Asmolov
Date and time:
Thursday 1 December, 2016
19:00 - 20:30
Location:
Ukrainian Institute London
79 Holland Park
London
W11 3SW
"The Russian-Ukrainian conflict prompted unprecedented levels of citizen engagement in the conflict through the internet. In addition to the "hot" warfare, battles rage on social media as millions are taking part in the conflict by writing posts, commenting or sharing information, trolling or banning the imaginary enemy. A new term, "a sofa army" ("диванне військо”), has been coined as the boundaries of a battlefield are becoming increasingly blurred.
Gregory Asmolov refers to these new phenomena as "participatory warfare," "immersive warfare" and "crowdsourcing of conflict." What is the role of social media in conflict? What role is played by the state? What lessons do communications experts draw from this?
The talk will be moderated by Marina Pesenti, Director, Ukrainian Institute London.
This event will be held in English.
FREE
Speaker
Gregory Asmolov
Gregory Asmolov completed his PhD thesis at LSE in September 2016. Prior to that he consulted on information technology, new and social media projects for the World Bank and Internews Network, and worked as a research assistant at the Berkman Center for Internet and Society, Harvard. He served as a contributing editor of RuNet Echo. He co-founded Help Map, a crowdsourcing platform used to coordinate assistance to victims of wildfires in Russia in 2010 which won a Russian National Internet Award for the best project in the State and Society category. He also participated in the development of rynda.org. He previously worked as a journalist for major Russian newspapers Kommersant and Novaya Gazeta and served as news editor and analyst for Israeli TV. Gregory Asmolov's talk at the Ukrainian Catholic University can be viewed here.
