Subscribe and Follow. Telegram and Responsive Archiving the War in Ukraine
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.6092/issn.1971-8853/15339Keywords:
Telegram, war, Ukraine, social media, responsive archivingAbstract
Being in the state of war — among many other things — means scrolling updates constantly. The hybrid nature of warfare developments is largely based on entanglements between events that you experience and mediated messages that you receive. Telegram has become an everyday go-to app for millions of Ukrainians since the full-scale invasion. The social media platform does not only reflect on current developments but also affects the warfare and wartime experiences directly. As captured and documented, it creates evidence of our recent experiences, covering all areas from the battlefield to the everyday routine across Ukraine on either side of the frontline and intertwining both physical and cyberspace. How do we capture, assess and make accessible such flows for future research, considering the legal and ethical complexity of documenting social media? With no definitive methodological answers but as an emergency effort, the Center for Urban History launched this archiving initiative to preserve the social media practices of the war in Ukraine. This essay is a self-reflection of a 5-month archiving initiative started as a civilian response to the full-scale Russian invasion of Ukraine.
References
Allam, H., Timsit, A., & Stern, D.L. (2022). Lviv Sees First Wartime Deaths amid Strikes, Ukrainian Officials Say. The Washington Post, 18 April. https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/2022/04/18/lviv-missile-strikes-ukraine-russia-war/
Bellingcat Forensic Architecture. (2022). Civilian Harm In Ukraine. 23 September. https://ukraine.bellingcat.com
DocudaysUA. (2022). Ukraine War Archive. 23 September. https://ukrainewararchive.org/eng
Durov, P. (2022). Telegram [Durov’s channel], 7 March. https://t.me/durov/179
Fedorov, M. (2022). Telegram [Fedorov’s channel], 30 June. https://t.me/zedigital/2156
Hołownia, O., Socha K., & Bingham, N. (2022). Web Archiving the War in Ukraine. International Internet Preservation Consortium Blog, 20 July. https://netpreserveblog.wordpress.com/2022/07/20/web-archiving-the-war-in-ukraine/
Karta povitryanykh tryvoh Ukrainy / Карта повітряних тривог України. (2022). Karta povitryanykh tryvoh Ukrainy, 29 July. https://alerts.in.ua/
Lazaruk, K. (2022). Bunk Debunkers: Warfakes as Russian War Participatory Propaganda. Institute of Network Cultures, 5 April. https://networkcultures.org/blog/2022/04/05/bunk-debunkers-warfakes-as-russian-war-participatory-propaganda/
Matviyenko, S. (2022). Dispatches from the Places of Imminence. Institute of Network Cultures Blog, 27 August. https://networkcultures.org/blog/author/svitlana/
Ministry of Culture and Information Politics of Ukraine. (2022). My War. 27 August. https://mywar.mkip.gov.ua/
Ogden, J. (2021). Everything on the Internet can be Saved: Archive Team, Tumblr and the Cultural Significance of Web Archiving. Internet Histories, 6(1-2), 113–132. https://doi.org/10.1080/24701475.2021.1985835
OPORA Survey. (2022). Media Consumption of Ukrainians in a Full-Scale War. https://oporaua.org/report/polit_ad/24068-mediaspozhivannia-ukrayintsiv-v-umovakh-povnomasshtabnoyi-viini-opituvannia-opori
Peeters, S., & Willaert, T. (2022). Telegram and Digital Methods: Mapping Networked Conspiracy Theories through Platform Affordances. M/C Journal, 25(1). https://doi.org/10.5204/mcj.2878
Rogers, R. (2020). Deplatforming: Following Extreme Internet Celebrities to Telegram and Alternative Social Media. European Journal of Communication, 35(3), 213–229. https://doi.org/10.1177/026732312092206
Similarweb. (2022). Ukraine’s Top Websites Ranking in June 2022, 29 July. https://www.similarweb.com/top-websites/ukraine/
Skalskyi, V. (Ed.). (2022). 100th Day of Resistance to Russian Aggression: Facebook-reflections / Сотий день спротиву агресії Росії: Facebook-рефлексії. Institute of the History of Ukraine, Ukrainian National Academy of Science, 27 August. http://resource.history.org.ua/item/0016774
Telegram Archive of the War. (2022). Center for Urban History, 27 August. https://storymaps.arcgis.com/stories/0af72de4b008461bb441fc62fffb9f8d
Telegram. (2018). Telegram Privacy Policy, 14 August. https://telegram.org/privacy
Urban Media Archive. (2022). Center for Urban History, 29 July. https://uma.lvivcenter.org/
War Documenting Projects. (2022). Center for Urban History, 29 July. https://www.lvivcenter.org/en/updates/documenting-the-war-2/
Published
Versions
- 2022-11-09 (2)
- 2022-10-17 (1)
How to Cite
Issue
Section
License
Copyright (c) 2022 Taras Nazaruk
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License.
