Authors

Aleksei Titkov¹;  ¹ The University of Manchester, UK

Discussion

The atrocity story inspired by street clashes in Odesa (Odessa) on May 2, 2014, that killed four dozen people, has become a rhetorical commonplace in Russian debates about Ukraine, the Euromaidan and the war. Academic literature about the formation of the ‘Odesa Massacre’ narrative focuses on the collective affects, fake news and manipulations in the broadcast media in the early stages of this process. These topics are not enough to explain why so many people strongly believe in the atrocity story even a decade after a short period of intense TV propaganda. Dynamic change in collective representations is another neglected aspect. Compared to the early stage of spring-summer 2014, later narratives on the Odesa incident appear more valid, although with a number of persistent distortions in details. At the same time, the modality of narratives has changed from reflections on non-obvious episodes to firm confidence. The presentation proposes an alternative conceptual framework explaining collective representations of the Odesa incident as the result of grassroots practices in social media. People who participate in collective narrative making are assumed to be rational and wanting to find out the truth, their spontaneously coordinated activity can be compared to scientific research. Explanation suggests a key role for the Web 2.0 environment that include built-in tools for searching and collecting digital evidence of the incident, and open discussion platforms where the proponents of different narratives are available for mutual criticism. The main question is how narratives of hatred and collective affects are shaped by the activity of many rational good-faith people in a media environment adapted for finding objective knowledge.