Russia’s Persistent Disinformation and Propaganda War Against the West

When: Wednesday, November 2nd, 2022 at 12 noon CDT 
​Where:   in- person via livestream
MidWestOne Bank  102 S. Clinton St​
Speaker: ​Dr. Peter Gross

Since 2000, the Kremlin has been waging a relentless information war against the U.S., NATO, the European Union, democracy, and liberal values. Russian disinformation and propaganda, disseminated to one extent or another on every continent, achieved hyper status as Vladimir Putin prepared to invade Ukraine. It continues in its varied, preposterous ways as the conflict endures. The presentation examines the nature, goals, and consequences of these ongoing struggles for the hearts and minds of audiences and the West’s late arrival on this bloodless, nonetheless perilous battlefield. ​

Peter Gross, Ph.D., is professor emeritus and former Director of the University of Tennessee’s School of Journalism and Electronic Media (2006-2019). Before his tenure at the UT, he held the Gaylord Family Endowed Chair (International Communication) at the University of Oklahoma, where he also served as Director of the Institute for Research and Training at the Gaylord College of Journalism and Mass Communication. He is now an adjunct faculty member at the University of Iowa’s School of Journalism and Mass Communication. Gross is a non-resident Fellow at the Center for Media, Data and Society, the Central European University (Vienna, Austria), and Co-Editor of the Journal of Romanian Studies (2020-2023). He is a long-standing columnist for Transitions Online, a Czech-based journal concentrated on East and Central European politics, economics, society, culture, and media. Multilingual, his research focus is East and Central European societies, politics, media, and cultures. He carried out multiple assessment assignments for the U.S. Information Agency (U.S.I.A.)/U.S. Department of State and Voice of America in these regions. In 1996, Gross was a research fellow at the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars, Washington, D.C. He frequently lectured at the U.S. Department of State's National Foreign Affairs Training Center and served as consultant to the International Media Fund, The Freedom Forum, the U.S.I.A. and Voice of America among other governmental and non-governmental organizations. He also served as scientific advisor to the EU-sponsored "Press Freedom and Media Systems in Europe” project at the University of Salzburg, Austria, and was a board member of the International Center for Protest Research, Martin Luther University, Halle, Germany. Among his 12 authored and co-authored scholarly books, textbooks, and co-edited book collections are, Entangled Evolutions. Media and Democratization in Eastern Europe (2002) and Media Transformations in the Post-Communist World: Eastern Europe’s Tortured Path to Change (2013), which he co-edited with Dr. Karol Jakubowicz (Poland).  His forthcoming book, Focusing on the Core. A Cultural Approach to Media Systems, will be released in 2023. In addition to his book chapters in edited volumes, his scholarly and journalistic articles are published in U.S. and European academic journals and general circulation publications, respectively. 

---