Unraveling Disinformation: The Case of Malaysia Airlines Flight MH17

Disinformation has become an important aspect within today’s security environment. However, despite the burgeoning literature on the topic, only few studies deconstruct the concept of disinformation by making use of empirical evidence. This article intends to contribute to our understanding of disinformation, by analyzing the numerous deceptive messages that were spread in the aftermath of Malaysia Airlines flight MH17, that crashed in the summer of 2014 in eastern Ukraine. More specifically the article emphasizes what kind of deceptive messages were being disseminated, what the strategic narrative was behind these messages, what deception mechanisms were used, what communication channels were used to disseminate the messages and finally what effects these messages had.To do this, the article draws upon investigative research done by the Bellingcat collective as well as on an analysis of numerous newspaper articles, videos and web-blogs. The paper concludes with a plea for more evidence-based research to further unravel the concept of disinformation and the effects it has.