Besides the Internet, television remains an important source of information. But the television can also become a weapon of information warfare, as it happened in Ukraine five years ago, when Russian media shouted about Bandera and oppression of Russian-speaking people to cover up Russian hybrid forces in Crimea and Donbas.
Now only one out of eight Ukrainians uses information from the Russian media. And how do we deal with the influence of Russian TV channels? What do Belarusians watch and whom do they trust?
According to a study by Internews, a third of Ukrainians have relations with someone who watches Russian television. In Belarus, the number of those who are affected by the Russian content through television is twice as high, notes media expert Pauliuk Bykouski:
“According to the polls, recently published by PACT, 63% of Belarusians say that in one way or another Russian television does exert influence. And even the Belarusian authorities, for example, Ihar Buzouski once said that 65% of the content on the Belarusian originates in Russia”.
Hybrid channels, such as RTR-Belarus or NTV-Belarus, which are supervised by the Belarusian state TV channels, are most accessible to the Belarusian audience, the expert notes. That is, Belarusians watch mostly Russian television.
Iryna Darafeichuk, belsat.eu
