Local, national, transnational: shifting audiences in Ukraine

Since 2013, scholars have been discussing events happening in Ukraine from the perspective of the “war of narratives” (Khaldarova and Pantti 2016). In this war, information has become one of the main weapons (Hoskins and O’Loughlin 2010), and fight for the publics has crossed the borders of the ordinary economic and political struggles. Previous research has mainly focused on the attempts of the Russian mainstream state-controlled media and other actors (e.g. trolls on social media) to influence the Russian-speaking audiences in Ukraine, Russia and elsewhere by spreading pro-Kremlin propaganda (see Pantti 2016). Less attention has been given to the Ukrainian media community and the internal processes in it in the period of crisis (Bolin, Jordan & Ståhlberg 2016). Being a part of the research project ”From nation branding to information war”, this paper focuses on the visions of the publics by the Ukrainian media community today. How do representatives of the media community imagine and perceive their audiences? What are the changes that have occurred along with the territorial changes – loss of Crimea to Russia and establishment of selfproclaimed ”people’s republics” in the East of the country? And which language do media producers choose today to speak to their audiences? Through the prism of “imagined audiences” (e.g. Litt and Hargitai 2016, boyd 2008) and “imagined communities” (Anderson 2006), this paper discusses several aspects of the changes in the visions of the audiences by the Ukrainian media community. First, it focuses on the visions of the audiences by the journalists who due to the crisis had to move geographically and, thus, work for a different audience today. As such, it takes up the cases of journalists who moved from Crimea and the socalled LPR and DPR to Kyiv or other Ukrainian regions. Another case is journalists from Russia who moved to Ukraine for ideological reasons. Second, the paper discusses the reactions of the media community to the need for reaching out to the audiences in Crimea and so-called DPR/LPR, the technological and ideological challenges of this communication. Third, it focuses on a serious challenge and change concerning the language, in which the audiences are addressed. Due to new legislative proposals and, according to some media experts, economic reasons, Ukrainian language is becoming more and more dominant both in broadcast and printed media. Yet, simultaneously Ukraine is one of successful producers of transnational entertainment products in Russian language (e.g. popular travel show “Oryol i Reshka” by TeenSpirit Production which is broadcast in Ukraine, Russia and Kazakhstan).Propaganda and management of information in the Ukraine-Russia conflict: From nation branding to information wa