Winter 2027
Russia–Ukraine Visual Propaganda Directed Research Group
Instructors:
- Lead: Ahna Arcturus, PhD Candidate
- Faculty Advisor: Professor Kate Starbird
State-aligned channels have used short-form videos to shape how English-speaking audiences understand the ongoing war in Ukraine. These videos combine footage, music, sound, and on-screen text to tell powerful stories about the war: who the enemy is, who is winning, who the victims are, and why the fighting is justified.
This Directed Research Group examines how these videos are audio-visually designed to spread state narratives and influence viewers. You’ll join a team analyzing videos posted between 2022 and 2026 across four state-associated channels and explore how this propaganda is constructed.
Working with a partner and a structured multimodal codebook, you’ll break each video into its visual, auditory, and textual modalities. You will explore how these layers fit together, whether the message is coherent, and how it influences viewer perceptions.
What does the footage actually show? What do the words claim? And do all the parts tell the same story?
What we’ll produce together:
- A tested multimodal codebook for analyzing video propaganda
- A coded dataset comparing four channels and tracking how short-form videos have changed since February 2022
- Findings on how these videos combine words, images, and sound to reinforce a historical and present-day narrative
- Data visualizations of channel trends
This project lays the groundwork for future digital literacy efforts and for computer-supported tools that could analyze video content at scale.
What you’ll gain:
- Hands-on experience in multimodal content analysis
- Qualitative and collaborative coding, including inter-coder reliability
- Research-care practices for working with sensitive material
- Insight into state narratives, propaganda, and information operations
- Training in relevant literature, methods, and more!
Enrollment information
- Credits: 3
- Application deadline: December 4, 2026
- In-person meetings: Researchers will meet once per week in person, based on team availability.
- Who should apply: Students interested in building research skills in qualitative coding, narrative intelligence, social media content analysis, grounded theory, or multimodal discourse analysis are strongly encouraged to apply. Students with Ukrainian or Russian language and cultural knowledge are also encouraged to apply (language is not required).
- This DRG counts toward the research requirement for PhD students.
- Apply via this Google Form
- Anticipated notification deadline: December 18, 2026.
- Questions? Email ahnaa@uw.edu
Autumn 2026
Conducting Rapid Election Rumor Research on TikTok
Instructors:
- Lead: Nina Lutz, PhD Candidate
- Co-Lead: Danielle Lee Tomson, PhD [Research Manager at Center for an Informed Public]
- Faculty Advisor: Professor Kate Starbird
During elections and other events of high public importance, rumors and cultural commentary happen in real time and researchers conduct rapid research to monitor and understand these trends in broader contexts.
For the 2026 midterms, the Center for an Informed Public is continuing their rapid election rumor research across several platforms. You can read a bit more about CIP’s past election efforts here: 2024 Rapid Research Blog | Center for an Informed Public
These rumors often occur in deeply cultural, if-you-know-you-know spaces online. These spaces need deep human researcher observations and interpretations in order to make sense of how they relate to one another and unfolding events like elections.
This DRG will serve as the TikTok hub for the election research team. We will conduct detailed observation and logging of TikTok 2026 midterm election content across different online communities and internet cultural trends.
Students will learn ethnographic observation best practices on TikTok and put this methodology into action. They will be able to directly contribute to real time outputs from the broader election team. In practice, this will involve developing and scrolling feeds on research phones and carefully documenting observations. Students will conduct this work and contribute to discussions about content that will inform weekly rumor briefs made available to the public.
More info about this method can be found at our CSCW preprint from how we conducted this work in 2024: Iterative Netnography and Occurrence for Rapid Research: A Case Study of TikTok
Expectations:
This DRG expects approximately 45 minutes of work daily (scrolling and writing observational notes) and then students to attend an hour and a half weekly meeting for analysis and memoing. This will be approximately 6 hours of work a week total.
Closest to the election (first week of November) may involve more scrolling needs. Students interested in doing additional scrolling time for this period for an additional credit may register for 3 credits.
Enrollment information
- Meeting time: This DRG will meet at 3 to 4:30 p.m. on Wednesdays, starting the first day of classes on September 30, 2026. Meetings will be in Sieg 420.
- Credits: 2 - 3 credits, depending on scrolling time
- This DRG does count toward the research requirement for PhD students.
- Who should apply: People who are avid TikTok users and consider themselves obsessed with pop culture and politics. Knowledge of local elections and someone who would typically follow 2026 midterms would be huge benefits. Spanish and other language talent is a plus.
- Application deadline: Apply by September 15 at 5 p.m. PST
- Anticipated notification deadline: Applicants will be informed by mid September.
- Questions? Email Nina Lutz, grad student lead, at ninalutz@uw.edu
- Apply via this Google Form