In August 2022, Detector Media conducted eight focus groups in Kyiv, Dnipro, Odesa, Vinnytsia, and Lviv to find out how the audience perceives the Ukrainian media landscape after Russia's full-scale invasion; the changes in media consumption; the sensitivity and attitude to propaganda; and to see possible transformations in the identity and values of Ukrainians. Each focus group included eight respondents - women and men aged between twenty and fifty. The results of this study are not meant to be representative, but they do allow us to identify trends.
Specifically, we saw that Ukrainians paid attention to the joint telethon (although it was not rated unanimously positive), a significant increase in the amount of high-quality content in the Ukrainian language, and a decrease in the presence of Russian-language media and pro-Russian narratives. At the beginning of the full-scale invasion, people almost completely gave up on entertainment content but later partially came back to it. There are also trends toward the rejection of Russian content, and young people are becoming more interested in the history and culture of Ukraine. The respondents do not consider propaganda to be an exclusively negative phenomenon but see it as an integral part of the information war; pro-Ukrainian propaganda is called a justified and necessary means of mobilising society. Changes in values include a rise in patriotic sentiment and a natural rejection of everything related to Russia. Detailed results of the study can be found in the report (in the presentation below).
