Pro-Russian ‘Ampliganda’ on TikTok

The next speaker in this AoIR 2024 conference session is Elena Pilipets, whose focus is on pro-Russian propaganda content on TikTok. TikTok establishes publics for imitation and amplification, and this has enabled a new form of ‘ampliganda’ (amplified propaganda) that thrives on affect and attention.

Russian propaganda, for instance, promotes the ‘Z’ symbol that has been associated with the full-scale invasion of Ukraine; there are many TikTok videos that show pro-Russian users make the ‘Z’ gesture with their hands, and thereby act out a particular state of mind. Some of this also intersects with the #RLM (Russian Lives Matter) hashtag.

TikTok networks are designed to make that gesture stick, and its memorisation feeds that process. How can this oxygen of amplification be avoided by researchers who study such processes? Key here is an attention on slow circulation, and a blurring of videos to remove idiosyncratic elements and focus in on more persistent overall features. This both breaks and brakes the memes and their analysis.