Propaganda and Social Networks: The Will to (In)vulnerability on the Full-Scale Invasion Eve

The article is dedicated to the research of the Ukrainian residents’ involvement in the centers of Russian propaganda on the eve of a full-scale Russian invasion. This is considered in the context of the use of social networks, which have been banned since 2014, by Ukrainian citizens. The authors analyze the types of use of social networks in Ukraine at the beginning of 2020, identify three clusters of users who have almost completely refused to use two popular Russian social networks, and three clusters of users who continued to use both quite actively despite the official ban. The analysis, which included two-dimensional and three-dimensional concretization of socio-demographic profiles of different types of users of social networks, indicates, in the authors’ opinion, the conditionality of the choice for or against the use of banned social networks by several factors. These are the belief in one’s own invulnerability to propaganda, the desire to receive pleasure through social contacts and unique news, as well as fatigue from Russian content, etc. The research data also show that the use of social networks in Ukraine, given the different types of subjective media literacy, was a complex process that requires further consideration, because visits to certain hostile social networks could be relatively safe, but security depended on typical practices of subjective differentiation of truth from lies. The most protected were users with a mixed individualistic-collectivist type of subjective media literacy, and collectivists with a narrow close circle of trust as well, while visually oriented individualists and collectivists, who were primarily oriented towards determining the authority or seriousness of information sources, were more prone to risk due to more frequent self-exposure to the potential danger of Russian propaganda.