Cyber narratives in conflict: The presence or absence of NAF-characteristics in the Ukrainian cyber narrative

The Ukraine-Russian conflict in 2022 is illustrative for the dominant role played by social media in distributing narratives for both Ukraine and Russia. As a multitude of narratives enter the fray, a complex landscape arises in which audiences are persuaded in favour of either of them. This exploratory research aims to deepen understanding on cyber narratives in conflict by examining the presence or absence of the Narrative Analysis Framework characteristics in the Ukrainian cyber narrative. Based on a thorough examination, it is concluded that one of the four NAF-characteristics emerges in the Ukrainian cyber narrative. Therefore, this research provides a substantiated incentive to conduct future research regarding cyber narratives in conflict. Besides offering a substantiated incentive, this study also positions the NAF-characteristics in a cyber context, sets a benchmark to methodologically apply the quantification of this framework onto a contemporary use case and provides a...Show moreThe Ukraine-Russian conflict in 2022 is illustrative for the dominant role played by social media in distributing narratives for both Ukraine and Russia. As a multitude of narratives enter the fray, a complex landscape arises in which audiences are persuaded in favour of either of them. This exploratory research aims to deepen understanding on cyber narratives in conflict by examining the presence or absence of the Narrative Analysis Framework characteristics in the Ukrainian cyber narrative. Based on a thorough examination, it is concluded that one of the four NAF-characteristics emerges in the Ukrainian cyber narrative. Therefore, this research provides a substantiated incentive to conduct future research regarding cyber narratives in conflict. Besides offering a substantiated incentive, this study also positions the NAF-characteristics in a cyber context, sets a benchmark to methodologically apply the quantification of this framework onto a contemporary use case and provides a holistic approach to comprehensively examine the prevailing topic of cyber narratives in conflict. Since the outcome of this research is based on a single case study and some characteristics do emerge in the use case, it is recommended that scholars conduct future research that complements the current results. One could, for example, examine the Russian cyber narrative distributed through Tiktok in 2023 and/or derive cyber narratives from the Israel-Hamas conflict that was triggered in 2023.Show less

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Cyber narratives in conflict: The presence or absence of NAF-characteristics in the Ukrainian cyber narrative