Original article was published on September 30 on fakenews.rs
Three weeks have passed since the parliamentary elections in Serbia were announced. During the current campaign, FakeNews Tragač recorded disinformation that appeared in the media and on social networks. So far, we have recorded 23 cases of disinformation. It’s time to make an overview of the situation and see which topics were the most represented among the recorded disinformation, which manipulation techniques were used, and from where disinformation most often came from.
Find all individual articles on pre-election disinformation in our sections Briefly and Analyses.
What topics are in the focus of disinformation?
Identity issues
Among all the cases of disinformation recorded by Tragač, the largest number of them thematically deals with identity and national issues. Within this topic, all recorded cases of disinformation were aimed at the student list. Through them, the tabloids and profiles on social networks that we analysed tried to attribute “unpopular” positions related to historical, cultural and other national issues to the opposition gathered around the student movement. Thus, through fake news, Ilija Srdanović, the first on the student list, was accused of recognizing the independence of Kosovo or of lying about his swimming for the Holy Cross (a traditional Serbian Orthodox Epiphany ritual held annually on January 19th). A student from Novi Pazar (city in Serbia inhabited mostly by Muslims), Emina Spahić, was falsely accused of not wanting to wear a t-shirt with a Cyrillic inscription. Student Emilija Milenković was falsely accused of “finally revealing the policy and program” of the student movement which includes declaring Serbs as “genocidal”.
Program and candidates of the student list
The second most popular topic represents the pattern through which the manipulators tried to construct a negative impression of the student list by challenging its candidates and its program. This topic is marked by the invention of the student list program and manipulations about its creation, instead of a criticism of the currently known list program. Thus, the analyst Uroš Piper invented “five real points” of the student list program, among which is the claim of “kicking the children of every SNS [ruling party] member out of kindergarten”. The tabloids attempted to delegitimize the student list, portraying its creators as inconsistent by falsely claiming that the students “proudly insisted that their list would only be students”, which later did not materialize. The former president of the Republic of Serbia, Aleksandar Vučić, said that “there are no workers, peasants, or students” on the list, which is another untruth.
Election procedures
The topic of election procedures is the only one in which the student list is not the most frequent target of disinformation. It expresses the creation of a wrong image about the electoral process, what precedes it and the rules by which it is determined. For example, manipulative illustrations have appeared on social networks that invite voters of the ruling SNS and SPS parties to circle the number in front of the list of both ruling parties, which would make their vote invalid. Lawyer and member of the Republic Election Commission (RIK) Sofija Mandić was labelled in tabloid articles as a representative of the student list in that body, which is incorrect, and then delegitimized based on her position on Kosovo and Metohija from seven years ago. One member of the RIK stated that in the objections to the use of Aleksandar Vučić’s name in the name of the list led by SNS, there is no reference to laws or the constitution, which also turned out to be incorrect. In some cases, disinformation about electoral procedures can be extremely dangerous because it affects the perception and understanding of the electoral process among voters.
Economy
Disinformation about the economy was most often expressed through the presentation of incorrect economic data or through selective quoting of interlocutors who spoke about the economy. In some cases, these manipulations served to embellish the current economic image of Serbia through comparisons with the alleged “economic chaos” that existed during the time of the former authorities. Thus, the first candidate on the SNS coalition list, Aleksandar Vučić, in his address on the occasion of leaving the office of the President of the state, stated wrong data about the public debt and the unemployment rate before his party came to power and him to the office of prime minister. Tabloids wrongly paraphrased that, Ilija Srdanović of student list, said that the Expo project was not so bad, and professor Miodrag Zec was selectively quoted to support the tabloid narrative of the student rebellion as a “rebellion of the rich”.
Creating a picture of conflicts
Although unsubstantiated news about intensifying conflicts within the opposition appear almost regularly in the tabloids, Tragač could only mark two such news as unquestionable disinformation. In the first, it is incorrectly stated that the student movement published a video parody dedicated to the rector Vladan Đokić, after it appeared that he is not on the student list. The second is dedicated to the alleged criticism that the judge Miodrag Majić (otherwise critical of the authorities) directed at the first candidate on the student list, Ilija Srdanović. The news was based on a post on X that Majić did not dedicate to Srdanović at all, which he confirmed in later posts. This kind of news represents an attempt to present the student list and the actors gathered around it as non-unified and prone to mutual conflicts.
Which manipulation techniques were used?
Among the analysed disinformation, the two most common manipulation techniques stand out: twisting quotes and false attribution. In quote twisting, manipulators selectively quote and misquote or paraphrase a statement by the target of disinformation. In one case, Alo completely invents a direct quote from former athlete and current opposition activist Vladimir Štimac, stating in the title a direct quote: “‘We will rape Vučić, and we will ride the rest of you!’ Štimac announced the blocking list program”.
False attribution is a phenomenon in which targets of disinformation are falsely attributed certain values, functions or actions. We have already talked about these cases in the framework of the thematic distribution of manipulations – the students were attributed to having posted a parody about Rector Đokić, waving and smiling at the Croatian MEP, that their program involves kicking children out of kindergarten, etc. Finally, some disinformation that we have registered can be classified as statistical manipulations. They misrepresent certain data or research. Part of the disinformation cannot be classified in a specific group by type, and they form the category Other.
FakeNews Tragač will continue to track pre-election disinformation in our Briefly and Analysis sections. In three weeks we will publish the next overview of disinformation, in which we will classify it according to the same categories as in this text.
Ivan Subotić, Teodora Koledin, Stefan Jnajić, FakeNews Tragač
Note: The amount of cases of disinformation in this analysis refers to falsehoods and manipulations identified and verified by FakeNews Tragač from the start of the campaign (September 9) to September 30, not the total number of disinformation that appeared during that period. For a more complete picture, follow the pre-election sections of our colleagues from Raskrikavanje and Istinomer.
