Max Alyukov

📢 My NEW ARTICLE in #IJPP: 2.3M domestic TV news episodes (2009–2019) in #Russia across 8 major networks + Interfax.
NLP + Diff-in-Diff around the 2016 RBC TV takeover to estimate shifts in #Ukraine -focused news.
Free access:
journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/...

05.01.2026 13:23 — 👍 10    🔁 2    💬 0    📌 1

Whose 'Fakes' ? Disinformation Awareness and Motivated Reasoning in Wartime Russia Accusations of disinformation now play a central role in contemporary political contestation. Beyond efforts to counter falsehoods, disinformation labels are in

This study is a part of my project ‘Reflexive propaganda: authoritarian communication in a hybrid media environment’ supported by the @leverhulmetrust.bsky.social. 7/7

dx.doi.org/10.2139/ssrn...

05.01.2026 13:43 — 👍 1    🔁 0    💬 0    📌 0

The broader takeaway: in saturated authoritarian media environments, raising awareness of disinformation does not necessarily build resilience. It can strengthen propaganda by giving citizens ready-made tools for epistemic self-defence. 6/7

05.01.2026 13:42 — 👍 3    🔁 1    💬 1    📌 0

These effects are asymmetric. Political narratives equip regime supporters with cognitive tools to dismiss counter-attitudinal information as disinformation. The mechanism is weaker among regime critics, reflecting the regime’s monopolisation of the disinformation label. 5/7

05.01.2026 13:42 — 👍 3    🔁 1    💬 1    📌 0

Exposure to political narratives further amplifies this tendency. Both pro- and anti-regime messages provide additional cognitive resources that help individuals discard uncongenial information as ‘disinformation’. 4/7

05.01.2026 13:41 — 👍 2    🔁 0    💬 1    📌 0

Key finding: disinformation awareness feeds into motivated reasoning. Politically engaged citizens with strong partisan identities are significantly more likely to use the label ‘disinformation’ to dismiss information coming from outgroup sources. 3/7

05.01.2026 13:41 — 👍 1    🔁 0    💬 1    📌 0

I combine an online experiment exposing participants to political narratives with an open-ended task tracing individuals’ associations with the concept of disinformation in wartime Russia, where the Kremlin has weaponised disinformation accusations to delegitimise critics. 2/7

05.01.2026 13:40 — 👍 0    🔁 0    💬 1    📌 0

New preprint is out!

Focusing on Russia, this paper asks what happens when disinformation awareness itself becomes a tool of authoritarian rule. We often assume that learning about disinformation increases resistance to propaganda. But what if the regime weaponises it? 1/7

05.01.2026 13:39 — 👍 9    🔁 5    💬 1    📌 1