Russian Propaganda and Information Access

The Finger Lakes Environmental Film Festival celebrates its 25th anniversary this year and will host a variety of films, speakers, and talkbacks. The 2022 edition of the festival will run from March 21 through April 10 and will be 90% virtual. Over 65 online events and films will be hosted by Ithaca College and Cinemapolis.

The theme this year is ENTANGLEMENTS, exploring how different environments, ideas, imaginaries, places, politics, practices, registers, and species twist into each other and enmesh.

The Park Center for Independent Media will be co-sponsoring several of the events in collaboration with FLEFF, starting with the book launch of “The Social Media Debate” on Wednesday, March 23.

Read more on upcoming events on The Edge.

Following Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, Western media began upending services in Russia as the country disseminated propaganda justifying its violence. While cutting Russia off from outside avenues for media has reduced its ability to target other countries with disinformation, it also increases Russian citizens’ reliance on the state for news, raising questions on the future of government and media action concerning information access.

Social media companies such as TikTok and Twitter worked to stop their platforms from spreading propaganda in and from Russia while traditional media companies and news outlets have been pulling journalists from the country, fearing recent crackdowns including a law that made it illegal to refer to the invasion of Ukraine as a “war.”

Read the full report on The Edge.

As the largest military operation in Europe since the end of World War II rages in Ukraine, people worldwide are pressed to read about the events in the region through reliable news sources. In response, The Park Center for Independent Media has compiled a list of reliable Ukrainian and Eastern European independent news outlets currently reporting on the war.

Two selected Ukrainian outlets include The Kyiv Independent, an English-language launched by 30 journalists who left the Kyiv Post due to concerns about editorial independence near the end of 2021, and Ukrainska Pravda, a Ukrainian online newspaper and the oldest and largest digital media outlet in the country.

Other reliable outlets from Eastern Europe include New Eastern Europe, The Fix, and VSquare.

See more news outlets on The Edge.

Environmental justice “conjures the possibility of convergence and true inclusion,” according to Cornell History Professor Aaron Sachs. It is “a set of principles and practices that always must be re-negotiated.” The only constant is that everyone gets a free and equal opportunity to take part in those negotiations.

On March 7, Sachs gave a talk examining how a historical perspective on environmental justice can offer a “radical, positive vision of collective thriving,” outlining the rich history of movements for land protection and sharing.

One of the earliest recognized environmental justice movements in the U.S. was a major protest in Afton, North Carolina against the dumping of toxic waste in the community. But the resonances of preserving and living on common land reaches centuries back in history, to Native American practices and the Diggers movement in England.

Read more from Sachs’ talk on The Edge.

Having worked in mainstream U.S. media at the start of the “War on Terror” and during the run-up to the U.S. invasion of Iraq, Jeff Cohen finds the differences in today’s war coverage dizzying.

While reporting on Russia’s horrific aggression in Ukraine, there is a real focus — as there always should be — on civilian victims of war. But there was virtually no focus on civilian death and agony when it was the U.S. military launching the invasions.

U.S. media have also correctly, repeatedly, and without equivocation, invoked international law and declared Russia’s invasion illegal. In contrast, establishment media has almost never called on international law amid recent decades of the U.S.’s attacks or invasions in country after country.

Read Cohen’s full commentary on The Edge.

1. Disney workers stage daily walkouts to protest ‘Don’t Say Gay’ and demand protections for LGBT+ staff (The Independent)

2. The Global Oil Market Is Based on a Fiction (The Atlantic)

3. Texas Ballot Rejections Soar Thanks To GOP-Backed Voting Rules, AP Finds (HuffPost)

4. Russia’s state TV hit by stream of resignations (BBC)

5. Mariupol theatre sheltering civilians bombed; Biden calls Putin ‘war criminal (The Guardian)