The Lion, the Eagle and the Firehose: Understanding the Mechanism of Disinformation in Southeastern Europe

Abstract

Disinformation has existed for decades. Only in the past seven years, however, the term has gained prominence in academic research, political discussion and military strategy. This thesis investigates whether or not disinformation on sampled Bulgarian and Serbian Facebook pages is constant and repetitive as posited by prior research. I selected Bulgaria and Serbia based on their similar demographic, political, social profiles and online user counts. The definition of disinformation is clarified, along with the two existing outlooks on disinformation: the war and societal perspectives. The impact of coronavirus on trust in governments is put into consideration. Existing scholarship and notable politicians have accepted the “firehose mechanism” for explaining how disinformation functions. I challenge this notion based on existing case studies from Estonia and Ukraine, which point to the operational costs of constant, repetitive disinformation and the potential for a response. Since Sofia and Belgrade have not made any policy responses to disinformation, I consider that the firehose mechanism is an inadequate explanation of the phenomenon. I propose the ecosystem mechanism as an alternative explanation that assumes both senders and recipients have some agency and ability to affect the flow of (dis)information.I hypothesize that disinformation is neither constant, nor repetitive on selected Bulgarian and Serbian Facebook pages. In order to test this hypothesis, I used the Scrapestorm webscraping software to create an original dataset consisting of Facebook posts from Bulgarian and Serbian pages known to post disinformation. To quantitatively analyze Facebook pages, specific Key Performance Indicators (KPIs) were created or adopted from other sources. I compared pages within each country sample to each other to assess if disinformation is constant. For qualitative analysis, I created samples of significant posts which were evaluated in their original languages post by post. In Bulgaria, I found that disinformation was neither constant, nor repetitive. The Bulgarian sample of Facebook pages consisted of smaller “specialist” pages which posted a large variety of disinformation narratives. These narratives were inconsistent across pages, many were influenced by the Covid-19 pandemic and provided false information regarding its origins and government conduct during the crisis. In Serbia, I found that disinformation was not constant, but it was repetitive. The Serbian sample of Facebook pages consisted of large news outlets whose posts were oriented towards a wide audience. These pages were termed “generalists”. Disinformation narratives were specific to Serbia and often discussed the Yugoslav wars, portraying Serbia as a victim of Western aggression. Very little content touched on the coronavirus pandemic. These results show that the ecosystem mechanism of disinformation may be applicable in other states beyond Bulgaria and Serbia. Analysis in countries beyond this region should consider other factors: geographic location, languages spoken and trust in government. Policymakers should understand the internet as a separate domain of society beyond their direct control. They will benefit from understanding how to live, govern and educate in an “always online” world.