| Abstract [eng] |
Political Attitudes of Lithuanian Diaspora in the Context of Russian Information Warfare: Case of England This work is the first attempt to look at the political attitudes of the Lithuanian diaspora in England and their information space. The research provides an initial analysis and the most relevant emerging tendencies, there is no intention to make deep theoretical summaries or conclusions. The material provides the necessary general knowledge of the political attitudes of the Lithuanian diaspora in England the support of the narratives used in the Russian information warfare and the habits of information usage. This work can serve as the basis for further research into the future The aim of this work is to find out whether the representatives of the Lithuanian diaspora in England tend to support narratives used in the Russian information warfare, as well as diaspora information space or habits of information sources usage. The work assumes that consent to information warfare narratives may depend on the "selective exposure" and the possible involvement of people in the "echo chambers". The general situation of the research is ambiguous and raises many questions. Sufficiently large numbers of respondents support or partially support the narratives of the Russian Information Warfare. 60.2% of respondents believe that the Lithuanian media is biased, 37.7% agree with statement that there are discrimination against ethnic minorities in Lithuania, 66.7%, that Lithuanian politicians are not competent, also 32.5% believe that the Baltic States and the West are exaggeratingly speaking about the threat posed by Russia. It need to be emphasized that 43.7% of the respondents believe that Lithuania would benefit from unrestricted trade with Russia, even if Lithuania's economic sovereignty would be compromised, while 45.3% disagrees with the statement that Lithuania should seek to impose stricter economic sanctions on Russia. However, it is interesting that some respondents disagree with statements that Russia poses a threat to the West (36.1%) or to the Baltic States (33.5%). The study also revealed a large proportion of those who do not have a clear-cut political viewpoint on one or another issue. Moreover, respondents who indicated that they use Russian information tools to obtain information is much more likely to support the narratives of the Russian information warfare. The same situation is evident with those who have indicated that films, free time and television broadcasts they watch in Russian language. Interestingly, a large proportion of respondents indicated that they did not select and use Russian media at all and that they rarely choose to watch films, entertainment and TV 64 shows in Russian language, but the support of Russian information warfare narratives remains high enough. Finnaly, the study revealed the "connection" between the Lithuanian and Russian mass media. Most respondents tend to use Lithuanian sources of information to obtain information, but the correlation showed that those who mostly use Lithuanian channels as the main ones tend to use Russian sources more often too. |
