The Dynamics of Political Narratives During the Russian Invasion of Ukraine

TL;DR

This study analyzes how political narratives on social media, especially Twitter, evolved during the first two months of the Russia-Ukraine conflict, highlighting the roles of different actor groups and narrative coordination.

Contribution

It introduces a network and text analysis framework to identify and examine the evolution of pro- and anti-state narratives during a global conflict on social media.

Findings

Both camps spread propaganda and misinformation.

Influential accounts significantly shaped narrative evolution.

Actors coordinated to promote or counter specific viewpoints.

Abstract

The Russian invasion of Ukraine has elicited a diverse array of responses from nations around the globe. During a global conflict, polarized narratives are spread on social media to sway public opinion. We examine the dynamics of the political narratives surrounding the Russia-Ukraine war during the first two months of the Russian invasion of Ukraine (RU) using the Chinese Twitter space as a case study. Since the beginning of the RU, pro-Chinese-state and anti-Chinese-state users have spread divisive opinions, rumors, and conspiracy theories. We investigate how the pro- and anti-state camps contributed to the evolution of RU-related narratives, as well as how a few influential accounts drove the narrative evolution. We identify pro-state and anti-state actors on Twitter using network analysis and text-based classifiers, and we leverage text analysis, along with the users' social interactions (e.g., retweeting), to extract narrative coordination and evolution. We find evidence that both pro-state and anti-state camps spread propaganda narratives about RU. Our analysis illuminates how actors coordinate to advance particular viewpoints or act against one another in the context of global conflict.