“WHY DOES THE AIR SIREN WORK?”: HOW TELEGRAM CHANNELS IN UKRAINE USE OPEN SOURCE DATA ABOUT MILITARY DANGER FOR CONSTRUCTING KNOWLEDGE ABOUT THE WAR

Resumen

Wars have always been mediated. However, the tools and techniques for mediation, facilitation, and creation of knowledge about the war have significantly changed in the last decade with the fast growth of new media and technologies. Understanding the details of military operations by civilians has become possible nowadays with social media and digital technology that change people's perception of war. This research focuses on Ukrainian Telegram channels that position themselves as open-source intelligence (OSINT) investigators and provide detailed information for civilians on types of missiles or drones in the air during the ongoing attack. They use information from military and open sources to facilitate the war for the general public and mediate the attacks. The paper explores how those Telegram channels became essential players in military communication during the active phase of the war in Ukraine. It also discusses the emergence of a new digital industry of monitoring the air in Ukraine for war participation and mediation. The research uses a digital ethnographic observation method to explore the ten most popular Ukrainian Telegram channels that provide information about attacks and examine types of messages, framing, wording, and other information-specificities for participatory warfare and constructing knowledge about the war. Also, textual and visual analysis of the messages and comments allows us to identify patterns in the work of those Telegram channels. This paper is a work in progress.