Knowledge Production and Boundary Setting in Polarised Social Media: Competing Narratives of the Odesa Fire 2014
Knowledge Production and Boundary Setting in Polarised Social Media: Competing Narratives of the Odesa Fire 2014
Wednesday, 9 July 2025: 13:36
Location: SJES024 (Faculty of Legal, Economic, and Social Sciences (JES))
Oral Presentation
The Odesa Fire of 2014 is one of the key contested topics in the context of the Russian-Ukrainian confrontation of the last decade. The incident occurred during street clashes between pro-Ukrainian and pro-Russian activists on May 2, 2014 in Odesa (Odessa), Ukraine's third-largest city. In the decisive moment, more than forty pro-Russian activists were killed in a deadly fire in the Trade Union building, which pro-Ukrainian activists were trying to storm. This episode became the basis of a atrocity narrative, blaming the pro-Ukrainian party for (allegedly) deliberately burning their opponents alive. One of its main tropes, the 'Odesa Khatyn', compares the incident to a famous Nazi war crime against civilians. In parallel, a rival pro-Ukrainian narrative has shaped, equally irreconcilable. According to this, the incident in Odesa was an early episode of the Russian-Ukrainian war, in which 'patriots saved the city'.
Previous studies of this case focused on early representations of the incident, with a particular interest in media manipulation, distortion and collective affects. The presentation aims to show other trends emerging over longer time period. These were shifs towards versions, albeit biased, but based on reliable video documents, as well as rational discussions about the facts in social media, which were limited in time but important in their consequences. Thus, the case under study provides grounds for reconsidering popular models of knowledge formation in social media, primarily the concept of echo chambers. As an alternative, a symmetric model of knowledge dynamics in polarised social media is proposed to explain both the prerequisites for producing valid collective knowledge and the strong limitations to doing so. The model is developed in a Durkhemian paradigm, primarily based on Mary Douglas's 'grid - group' concept, combined with the ideas of David Bloor's 'strong program' in the sociology of scientific knowledge.
Previous studies of this case focused on early representations of the incident, with a particular interest in media manipulation, distortion and collective affects. The presentation aims to show other trends emerging over longer time period. These were shifs towards versions, albeit biased, but based on reliable video documents, as well as rational discussions about the facts in social media, which were limited in time but important in their consequences. Thus, the case under study provides grounds for reconsidering popular models of knowledge formation in social media, primarily the concept of echo chambers. As an alternative, a symmetric model of knowledge dynamics in polarised social media is proposed to explain both the prerequisites for producing valid collective knowledge and the strong limitations to doing so. The model is developed in a Durkhemian paradigm, primarily based on Mary Douglas's 'grid - group' concept, combined with the ideas of David Bloor's 'strong program' in the sociology of scientific knowledge.