Digital authoritarianism through discursive closures: The case of Gonzalo Lira as reported by U.S. and Ukrainian news media

Problem Statement

With the advent of digital media, researchers began paying great attention to their ability to promote positive social change through the development of transnational communication networks. Many scholars were very optimistic about the potential of such networks to shape transnational public spheres that would have a positive impact on democratic conditions within and across national borders. Digital media were praised for their perceived ability to represent the voices of marginalized populations and create opportunities for them to be included in political processes, thereby facilitating vibrant democratic communication.

Over time, however, there has been a growing understanding that digital media, rather than facilitating the democratic exchange of diverse opinions and the inclusion of excluded viewpoints in political debate, may instead create new divisions, generate new tensions, and drive intolerance to previously unseen heights. It has been found that people who encounter radically different ideologies or political views in the digital world can experience frustration, resentment and alienation. Largely closed online communities of like-minded people emerge, whose members may find themselves in ideological enclaves protected from alternative viewpoints by digital algorithms. Not only do these enclaves deepen existing socio-political divisions, but they also increase the likelihood that a divided society will be subject to manipulation by vested interests, including authoritarian rulers. They may establish repressive control over citizenry using digital technologies, which is commonly referred to as digital authoritarianism (DA).

It has been increasingly recognized that the rapid proliferation of digital media technologies may facilitate the growth of DA, which undermines free speech, suppresses political pluralism and civil liberties, hinders accountability, misinforms, and undermines the democratic condition in any other way possible¹. Importantly, the repressive practices of DA may be observed even in societies that, strictly speaking, cannot be classified as authoritarian. In the view of James Pearson [Pearson 2024], any governmental surveillance over citizens, even if carried out with the benign aim of ensuring public well-being — public health, for example, during a pandemic — may also be classified as DA. In other words, even in a democratic society, practices that undermine free speech, political pluralism, and civil liberties can be considered authoritarian.

Despite the growing recognition that DA practices may be implemented in both authoritarian and democratic societies, most scholarly works analyze DA in the context of political environments whose authoritarian condition is taken for granted. Predominantly, these are the states of Africa, the Middle East, or Asia. China and Russia occupy a special place in these studies, since these countries have a high level of technological advancement necessary for the implementation of modern digital governance mechanisms [Howells, Henry 2021]. Nathalie Maréchal argues that they may share technological advances with other authoritarian states, calling such cooperation “networked authoritarianism” [Maréchal 2017: 35].

Strictly speaking, what Maréchal discusses does not seem an exact fit for the term “networked authoritarianism,” defined by MacKinnon as the adjustment of a particular authoritarian state “to the inevitable changes brought by digital communications” [MacKinnon 2011: 33], but rather transnational networked authoritarianism [TNA], in which states deemed authoritarian establish connections to help each other maintain control over their respective populations.

But how about countries that are considered democratic yet which nevertheless help each other to develop repressive control mechanisms? If we assume that any situation in which digital technologies systematically facilitate authoritarian politics can be labeled as DA, then we should agree that such cooperation between states with the aim of maintaining or improving control over societies deemed democratic can also be called TNA. Following this logic, the manuscript considers an instance of local authoritarianism sustained with the help of the global digital network of democratic media from democratic states that, due to geopolitical considerations, remained blind to human rights violations in a particular society. This article discusses the case of Gonzalo Lira, a blogger from the United States who died in a Ukrainian prison after being charged with producing and disseminating materials that justified Russia’s Special Military Operation (SMO).

The paper is organized in the following order. First, the sociopolitical context of the study is presented — the strengthening of authoritarianism in Ukraine under President Volodymyr Zelensky. Second, the methodological foundations of the study are considered. Then, the media coverage of Lira’s death is analyzed and conclusions are drawn about the possibility of democratic media from democratic states aiding the consolidation of local authoritarianism through establishing discursive closures.

History of the Issue

From Popular Comedian to Unpopular Authoritarian Ruler

The pre-war history of Ukraine’s President Zelensky is a story of the transformation of a popular actor into an unpopular authoritarian ruler. The astonishing victory of the comedian in the 2019 presidential election cannot be explained apart from the success of his television series Servant of the People, the title of which became the name of Zelensky’s political party [Baysha 2022].

The series served as Zelensky’s informal election platform, which provided Ukrainians with a detailed vision of what should be done so that Ukraine could make progress. The idea of “progress,” as delivered by Zelensky in both his official and unofficial platforms, was never linked to privatization, land sales, or budget cuts. However, as soon as he consolidated his presidential power, Zelensky made it clear that “progress” would mean the privatization of land and state/public property, the deregulation of labor relations, a reduction of power for trade unions, an increase in utility tariffs, and so on.

The unexpected neoliberal reforms led to widespread discontent. Zelensky’s approval rating plummeted from about 73 percent to below 30 percent, a development he blamed on oppositional media. Starting in early 2021 and throughout the year that preceded SMO, Zelensky’s government used the authoritarian tactic of official actions against media organizations, such as NewsOne, 112 Ukraine, ZIK, First Independent, UKRLIVE, Nash, and others. All of them, as well as other oppositional media, were shut down.

Nonetheless, these measures did not bolster Zelensky’s popularity. In January 2022, his presidential rating was as low as 17 percent². It was the beginning of Russia’s SMO in February 2022 that transformed Zelensky from an unpopular ruler defying his people’s will into a hero standing up for his people against Russia’s tyranny and barbarism. This “hero” narrative regarding the war, as presented by Zelensky, came to be normalized on a global level by corporate media with a global reach and other global ideological institutions [Baysha 2023].

All oppositional interpretations have since come to be seen as Russian disinformation, with the arrests of oppositional journalists and bloggers justified by the necessity of defending Ukraine’s sovereignty and punishing so-called “collaborators.” On March 20, 2022, Zelensky signed a decision by the National Security and Defense Council to ban 11 oppositional political parties on the premise of their ties with the Russian Federation. On December 29, 2022, Zelensky signed into law an expansion of the government’s regulatory power in the media sphere. Through this legislation, the entire information space of Ukraine was taken under strict control.

At the beginning of the war, Zelensky repeatedly asked journalists not to spread Russian disinformation, arguing that its narrative concerns US/NATO attempts to turn Ukraine into a Western stronghold on Russia’s borders. In other words, anybody who would dare to link the ongoing war with NATO expansion and the interests of the military-industrial complex of the United States would be considered a mouthpiece for Russia. This happened to the British musician Roger Waters of Pink Floyd fame, after a CNN interview in which he criticized the role of NATO the U.S. government in the Russia-Ukraine war. Waters was immediately declared an enemy of Ukraine, and his name was put on Myrotvorets, an infamous blacklisting website that has been part of the general strategy of intimidating those who opposed the Ukrainian regime. The same destiny awaited numerous other well-known foreign public figures who articulated the conflict in ways at odds with the “correct” version according to the government of Ukraine. Among them were Oliver Stone, Henry Kissinger, John Mearsheimer, and many others, including dozens of foreign journalists.

Despite all these developments, which could hardly be called democratic, Zelensky’s narrative about Russia attacking Ukraine to trample democracy went unchallenged in mainstream Western media. They uncritically portrayed Ukraine as a young democracy embodying the ideals of freedom in all spheres, while Russia was presented primarily as an aggressive empire, intolerant of democratic neighbors and ready to conquer them [Bergman, Hearns-Branaman 2024; Boyd-Barrett 2023].

The digital platforms of Western ideological apparatuses have been providing Zelensky unlimited opportunities to deliver to global publics his story about the forces of good fighting the forces of evil, while hiding the real-political context of what is going on. The goal of Zelensky and his Western partners was to create a transnational network of civilized forces fighting tyranny and barbarism. Zelensky’s discursive creations constructed the people of Ukraine as an integral part of the global civilized community that he sought to represent.

In the global discourse controlled by corporate media and other ideological institutions, the myth of the struggle of civilization and democracy against tyranny and barbarity, promoted by Zelensky and his Western partners, was the only possible explanation for the ongoing crisis. Thanks to the TNA discussed in this article, all alternative articulations of the conflict have been eliminated from the world’s view. The condition for Zelensky’s mythology about the final battle between good and evil to gain strength and be accepted as normal judgment was the exclusion of alternative opinions and the dissenters who expressed them.

Strengthening Authoritarian Rule

As the military conflict developed and Zelensky’s authoritarianism intensified, however, even Western mainstream media and press-freedom watchdogs that had turned a blind eye on criminal prosecutions of the opposition in Zelensky’s Ukraine were no longer able to ignore what was happening in the country. In Summer 2024, several leading Western media outlets³, including the influential the New York Times⁴, published revealing news articles discussing how the Ukrainian government suppresses critical reporting and dictates what should and should not be published.

These materials are useful for understanding the trajectory of Zelensky’s burgeoning authoritarianism. Its first victims were oppositionists who were not holding back on critical coverage of the government. Accused of spreading Russian propaganda, they were silenced by various means, from arrests to forced emigration. Only alternative media reported on these cases; the authors of this paper were not able to find a single news story in Western mainstream media about Dmitry Dzhangirov, Yuri Tkachev, Aleksandr and Mikhail Kononovich, Yan Taksyur, Oleg Skvortsov, Pavel Volkov, or numerous other journalists/bloggers/oppositionists imprisoned in Ukraine since 2022.

The next wave of persecution hit those who had remained silent about the crackdown on so-called “pro-Russian propagandists” in hopes that their indulgence would help them maintain at least some degree of journalistic freedom. Among these were media outlets supported by the United States because of their anti-corruption investigations — that is why the problems encountered by these investigators at the hands of Zelensky’s government were publicized by U.S. media and watchdogs.

That said, the strengthening and consolidation of Zelensky’s authoritarian rule would hardly be imaginable without the enabling silence of the global digital media sphere. In the spirit of a well-known quote attributed to U.S. President Franklin D. Roosevelt regarding the Nicaraguan dictator Anastasio Somoza — “He may be a son of a bitch, but he’s our son of a bitch” — global media refrained from criticizing the Ukrainian government for persecuting the opposition and chose not to report on the persecution of pro-Russian dissidents, that is, critics of Zelensky, who began to be equated with mouthpieces of Russian propaganda.

In his recent book, Richard Sakwa [2025] provides numerous examples of various international agencies whose ostensible mission is to counter Russia’s disinformation. In reality, this “disinformation” does not appear to be deliberately false content, but rather adversarial narratives that are harmful to the global hegemony of the United States and other Western nations, Sakwa argues. His analysis is in line with numerous other critical thinkers who problematize the demonization of Russia, as carried out by global media and other ideological institutions in order to close the discourse and exclude any interpretations of the ongoing conflict that may be unfavorable to U.S./Western hegemony⁵ [e. g. Boyd-Barrett 2023; Diesen 2023; Hayward, Robinson 2024; Jutel 2023; Marmura 2023; Robinson 2023; Sussman 2023].

The nexus between global digital media and local digital authoritarianism is the focus of this paper. To show how TNA may manifest itself, the paper discusses the case of Gonzalo Lira, a blogger from the United States who died in a Ukrainian prison after being arrested for his online content, even though famous public figures such as Elon Musk, Tucker Carlson, and Jeffrey Sachs advocated for his release.

The Life and Death of Gonzalo Lira 

Gonzalo Lira, an American citizen of Chilean descent, passed away on January 11, 2024, in a hospital in Kharkov, the Ukrainian city where he had been living since marrying a Ukrainian woman he later divorced. Before moving to Ukraine, Lira was known as a filmmaker, but he gained international notoriety because of his commentary about the Russia-Ukraine war. Viewing the conflict as a proxy war waged by the United States against Russia, he sharply criticized both Zelensky’s increasingly dictatorial policies and those of Joe Biden, hoping to strengthen domestic opposition to U.S. funding of the war. Lira published his commentary on Facebook*, YouTube, Telegram, X, and other digital platforms.

In May 2023, he was arrested on charges of producing and distributing materials justifying and glorifying Russia’s military operation. The news of Lira’s deteriorating health came from his father, Gonzalo Lira Sr., who made public a prison note from his son about suffering double pneumonia, pneumothorax, and severe edema as well as experiencing extreme shortness of breath. The elder Lira said he attempted to get help from the U.S. Department of State, but his efforts were in vain. On January 12, 2024, the Department of State confirmed the blogger’s death, extending condolences to the family but refraining from further comments.

How did Western and Ukrainian digital media report on the death of Gonzalo Lira? Which linguistic means were employed by them to explain it? Which meanings related to this death were highlighted and which were ignored? These were the questions guiding our research. To answer them, the authors of the paper used the discourse theory of Laclau and Mouffe, as well as Carpentier’s model of the discursive-material knot.

Study Methodology and Research Design

The Discourse Theory of Laclau and Mouffe

According to Laclau and Mouffe’s discourse theory (DT), discourse is a powerful social force that contributes significantly to the formation of social relations by creating and stabilizing the meanings that govern them. No meaning is established outside of discourse; the struggle for meanings takes place in the discursive field, which consists of linguistic signs/signifiers that are sometimes linked and sometimes separated from each other, and then reunited in new combinations. When two or more signifiers are linked together, it is called articulation. For example, the connection between signifiers “Donbass” and “popular anti-Maidan uprising” would create a positive image of what happened in the region in the aftermath of the Maidan coup of 2014; while the connection between “Donbass” and “terrorism” would create a negative image of it.

Articulation is the first step in creating discourse. Discourse forms when several most important master-signifiers (nodal points) are linked together in the so-called “equivalential chain” [Laclau, Mouffe 1985: 98]. For example, the pro-Maidan discourse was formed when such nodal points as “Maidan”, “freedom”, “democracy”, “European integration”, “revolution of dignity”, and so forth were linked together in the discursive chain. In this case, the signifier “Maidan” became “empty”, since it presupposed a synecdochic representation of the chain of all other interconnected elements. In other words, it did not designate its own meaning (the geographical space in the center of Kiev), but the totality of all the signs equivalentially united in the discursive chain. At the same time, an antiMaidan discourse was formed, when “Maidan” was equivalently united with such signifiers as “coup d’état”, “radicalism”, “extremism”, “nationalism”, and so forth. When used by alternative discourses, in which it assumed different meanings, the signifier “Maidan” acquired the status of not empty, but floating.

According to DT, if a certain discourse gains social dominance, it becomes hegemonic. The goal of any hegemonic project is to stabilize the nodal points in the discursive chain in such a way that the connection between them is perceived as normal, natural, and without alternative. When this happens, “sedimentation” occurs, a term that Laclau and Mouffe borrow from Edmund Husserl. This is a state in which the process that led to the formation of a certain meaning becomes invisible and forgotten — when all the traces of the original diversity of meanings are erased.

The formation of discourse ends when a discursive closure occurs. It is characterized by the acceptance as normal judgment of certain specific understandings formed and fixed within the framework of a specific discourse. The condition of possibility for such a discursive fixation of meaning is the exclusion of alternative interpretations and the suppression of dissenters who express them. This is important to recognize because strengthening discourses by excluding alternative perspectives limits what can be discussed, the ways in which that discussion can be conducted, and the political actions that arise from those discussions.

But it is also important to recognize that discursive closures are always temporary: since linguistic signs can be linked to alternative signifiers, equivalent chains of which can form alternative discourses, any meaning is considered conditional, that is, subject to change. Nonetheless, some discursive closures persist over long periods of time (though not permanently) — either due to the social sedimentation discussed earlier or as a result of information management, including media propaganda.

The Discursive-Material Knot of Nico Carpentier

The focus of this study is on the long-term discursive closures achieved through digital media propaganda, considered as a DA tool. Zelensky outlawed media outlets with an oppositional agenda in order to establish a discursive closure and make certain meanings that benefit his political course indisputable. To do this, he had to re-articulate oppositionists as traitors, Russian collaborators, and so forth. To eliminate all the meanings they promoted from the public sphere of Ukraine, it was also necessary to deactivate the technological capabilities of alternative media. In other words, it was necessary to demolish the discursivematerial assemblage of the opposition, capable of discursive production. For a discursivematerial analysis of the situation, Carpentier’s DMK [Carpentier 2017] will be a useful tool.

In Carpentier’s model, the material appears as both creative and destructive: it structures the social by granting or denying access to spaces, allowing or denying bodies the ability to move, encouraging or discouraging certain actions and meanings, creating or destroying material and immaterial (discursive) structures, and so forth. The material aspects of social reality participate in discursive struggles, prompting the consideration of one meaning or another. If, as in Stephen King’s The Dead Zone, a person perceived as a hero tries to escape a sniper’s shot by hiding behind a child, then this material event completely changes the person’s identification: in one moment, he turns from a hero into a villain.

Any unexpected event (material change) can provoke rearticulations and discursive transformations if the established discursive order is unable to provide a meaningful explanation for what is happening. Such events point to the failure of the hegemonic discourse to reflect the material order of things. On the other hand, material intervention can only strengthen the discursive order, demonstrating the ability of the dominant discourse to organize social life without showing obvious contradictions.

Research Design

To answer their research questions, the authors of this paper analyzed U.S. and Ukrainian digital media that reported on Lira’s death. The data were collected through a Google search by typing the keywords “Gonzalo Lira”, “Gonzalo Lira [AND] Ukraine”, “Gonzalo Lira [AND] prison”, and “Gonzalo Lira [AND] death”, as well as their Ukrainian equivalents: “Гонсало Ліра”, “ГонсалоЛіра [AND] Україна”, “Гонсало Ліра [AND] тюр­ма”, “Гонсало Ліро [AND] помер”. The search was limited to the time frame between January 12 and 19, 2024, as the idea was to focus on immediate reactions by the media. Within the indicated time frame, it was found that 18 U.S. media and 5 news outlets in Ukraine covered Lira’s death, publishing one story each.

A two-step research procedure to analyze media representations was employed. First, from all the collected media texts, the authors compiled a list of signifiers, the equivalent chains of which formed alternative discourses in which the empty signifier “Gonzalo Lira” acquired a floating status, being linked to alternative associations. The situation was then examined in all its discursive-material complexity, with an emphasis on the material aspects of DA.

Analysis of the Materials

U.S. Media Coverage of Lira’s Death

U.S. Media Sympathetic to Lira

As this investigation showed, 11 of the 18 U.S. media that reacted to Lira’s death were sympathetic to the blogger’s work and critical of both the U.S. and Ukrainian governments. These media are listed in alphabetical order in Table 1.

Table 1. U.S. Media Sympathetic to Lira and Critical of the U.S. and Ukrainian Governments

Tucker Carlson⁶ was the first to report on Lira’s death, arguing that the blogger had been imprisoned for “criticizing the Zelensky and Biden governments”. Carlson also cited Lira’s father, who claimed his son had been brutally abused in prison.

Most of the media outlets in the first group cited Carlson’s article, and most of them repeated his claim that Lira was imprisoned for his political views and for criticizing the Zelensky and Biden governments⁷. Some media outlets also reported that Lira was tortured⁸.

Grayzone called Lira “a critical voice in the increasingly dictatorial Ukraine” who died because of “medical neglect by Ukrainian authorities”⁹, and this piece was reprinted by the Ron Paul Institute¹⁰, referenced by WSAU¹¹, and cited by Sportskeeda¹².

NTD News cited Lira’s claim that “his fellow inmates did the ‘dirty work’ for the prison guards by repeatedly beating him” and that his medical condition “was being ignored by his jailers”¹³. This piece was republished by the Epoch Times¹⁴.

Thus, the story of Lira’s death was constructed by the U.S. media sympathetic to the blogger through linking in an equivalential chain such nodal points as “criticism of Zelensky and Biden”, “political views”, “dictator Zelensky”, “dictatorial Ukraine”, “torture”, “medical neglect”, “the US Embassy did not help”, and so forth. In other words, the emphasis was on Lira being arrested for his political views and suffering imprisonment, torture, and neglect, with both Ukraine and the United States bearing responsibility.

It is noteworthy that the media sympathetic to Lira cited each other, creating a web of similar interpretations. Most of these 11 outlets represented what is commonly referred to as alternative journalism, based on criticism of dominant journalistic discourses.

U.S. Media Critical of Lira

Seven U.S. media outlets reported Lira’s story while criticizing the blogger; they are listed in alphabetical order in Table 2.

Table 2. U.S. Media Critical of Lira and Sympathetic to the Ukrainian Government

Within this group, Newsweek was the first to react to Lira’s death, calling the blogger a “pro-Putin American expat” who was imprisoned “over allegations of spreading Russian propaganda”. Newsweek questioned the report that the blogger was tortured, with one of its sources suggesting that Lira “made up allegations of abuse”¹⁵.

Fox News made reference to the Newsweek article, repeating its information that Lira was spreading Russian propaganda and stressing that justifying Russia’s aggression was “a criminal offense under Ukrainian law”¹⁶. The Fox article was republished by the New York Post¹⁷.

The Daily Caller also focused on Lira’s support for “the Russian invaders” and hist glorification of “their war crimes”¹⁸. The Daily Caller’s piece was republished by AllSides¹⁹.

The Daily Beast dismissed those supporting Lira as “right-wing pundits” [Elon Musk and Tucker Carlson] or “Kremlin-aligned outlets” [the Grayzone]. It also highlighted that before the Russia-Ukraine war, Lira had been a “relationship expert” — not a political journalist²⁰.

This theme was further developed by the Bulwark, which emphasized that before the war Lira was “a dating and seduction guru with an explicitly and grossly misogynistic slant” whose online presence included “a number of blatantly antisemitic posts”²¹.

Thus the story line of seven media outlets that were critical of Lira was built through linking such nodal points as “pro-Kremlin”, “pro-Putin”, “pro-Russian”, “propagandist”, “justified Russian aggression”, “denied Russian crimes”, “glorified Russian war crimes”, and so forth. What also united these stories was skepticism regarding Lira being tortured in prison, as well as the absence of any negative evaluation of the Ukrainian or U.S. governments — key nodal points characterizing the alternative discourse analyzed in the previous section. Some authors tried to normalize the idea of imprisonment for political views, presenting it as a common practice under a state of war. They also tried to discredit and humiliate Lira, which manifested itself in accusing him of antisemitism and misogyny. As in the case of the media favorable to Lira, the group of outlets unfavorable to him also referred to each other, reproducing a pro-Ukrainian discourse.

Ukrainian Media Coverage of Lira’s Death

As stated earlier, it was established that five Ukrainian media outlets reported on Lira’s death between January 12 and January 19, 2024; none of them showed sympathy for the blogger. These outlets are listed in Table 3.

Table 3. Ukrainian Media Outlets that Reported on Lira’s Death

Four of the media presented Lira’s case in an explicitly negative light, while one was neutral. Calling the blogger “a supporter of the Russian world”, Antikor²² referred to the Grayzone’s article and cited Carlson. However, the medium did not endorse their sympathy for Lira, did not present his arrest as a political reprisal, and did not discuss Lira’s mistreatment in prison. Instead, it emphasized his “justification of the Russian aggression.”

Informator also referred to the Grayzone and Carlson, but it called them “propagandists.” The medium said Lira had been “justifying Russia’s armed aggression against Ukraine” and “spreading fakes about the war”. The signifier “tortured” was preceded by “ostensibly”²³.

The New Voice also referred to the Grayzone article and the post by Carlson, while discrediting the latter as being “known for his explicitly pro-Russian sayings”. The medium also made reference to Daily Beast coverage of Lira’s past as a relationship coach and noted that “his blog was full of stereotypes about women”²⁴. New Voice’s piece was republished by the Patriots of Ukraine²⁵.

The Economic News was the only Ukrainian medium that called Lira not a “Russian propagandist” but an “American blogger”, and the only one that did not use a word like “ostensibly” regarding torture²⁶. It provided neutral information about Lira’s health problems and the accusations made by his father against the United States and Ukraine.

As this brief overview of Ukrainian reporting on Lira’s death shows, the main story line for the country’s media was built through linking such signifiers as “pro-Russian propagandist”, “fakes”, “disinformation”, “justification of Russia’s aggression”, and so forth. Similar to some U.S. media critical of Lira, Ukrainian outlets also tried to discredit Lira by discussing the “misogyny” of his pre-war relationship coaching to highlight Lira’s dubious moral character.

Commonalities Between Ukrainian and U.S. Media
Coverage of Lira’s Death

In comparing the discussion of Lira’s death within the media spheres of Ukraine and the United States, a clear resemblance emerges: The majority of popular media outlets in both countries avoided the topic altogether. Among those listed as Ukraine’s most-visited news sites, only the New Voice and the Informator reported on Lira’s death, and their attitude toward the blogger — as the analysis presented in this paper demonstrates — was explicitly negative. Most of the top U.S. media outlets also ignored the news, other than Newsweek, the New York Post, and Fox, with all three covering Lira’s story in ways that could hardly be regarded as favorable or at least neutral to the blogger.

With few exceptions, most of the most popular news sources in both the United States and Ukraine decided either not to report on Lira’s life and death at all, or else to present him in a negative light, highlighting not only Lira’s pro-Russian views but also his dubious moral character. Media that emphasized the political nature of Lira’s case, his torturing in prison, and the responsibility of the U.S. and Ukrainian governments were predominantly alternative news outlets that had been critiquing the dominant ways of doing journalism, not only in Lira’s case but in general.

Research Results

The findings presented in this paper are in line with the results of a study conducted by MintPress News that compared media coverage of Lira, who died in a Ukrainian prison in January 2024, and Alexei Navalny*, who died in a Russian jail one month later. Both were controversial figures criticizing the states that imprisoned them. The study compared coverage of the two deaths in five leading media: the New York Times, the Washington Post, ABC News, Fox News, and CNN — the most influential U.S. outlets. Their study found that the five outlets “collectively ran 731 segments on Navalny* between February 16 and February 22, compared to just one on Lira since his death on January 12”²⁷. In other words, the case of Lira was overwhelmingly ignored.

In our view of Mint Press News, the reason for this radical difference in coverage regarding the two oppositionists was that one was a figure supported by the West, while the other was a pro-Russian voice. In other words, it was due to geopolitical reasons that the U.S. media — which are deemed democratic — refrained from discussing the death of a journalist within the context of Ukraine’s authoritarian regime, even though there was plenty of evidence to suggest Lira was not its only victim. Only after journalists who received grants and other support from Washington began to be prosecuted by the Ukrainian government for their work investigating the state’s corruption did U.S. mainstream media and watchdogs react [see the introductory part of this paper].

Within the context of comprehensive U.S. support for Ukraine in its fight against Russia, it is very important that — just like their Ukrainian counterparts, silenced in the course of Zelensky’s consolidation of power — leading U.S. media, with rare exceptions, also either ignored the death of Lira or evaluated him negatively based on his war commentary and personality. None of the U.S. media under analysis, even those more sympathetic to Lira, considered his case within the context of Ukraine’s war against dissidents; none attempted to report statistics on the persecution of thousands of people deemed “collaborators” with Russia, although the figures are freely available on the website of the Security Service of Ukraine, which takes pride in its work in catching “traitors”.

The framing that both Ukrainian and U.S. media employed was episodic — it focused on the personality of Lira or the details of his imprisonment and health issues rather than a broader tendency within Ukraine to shut down the opposition. Although some U.S. media mentioned the increasingly dictatorial policies of Zelensky, they did not provide details or discuss the scope of this trend. By failing to situate Lira’s death within the context of the widespread persecution of oppositionists and the violation of human rights in Ukraine, U.S. media contributed to the strengthening of authoritarian rule in the country.

This does not mean, of course, that people all over the world were completely deprived of the opportunity to learn about Lira or other similar cases, or to obtain other information that has been suppressed in Ukraine. Within interconnected digital networks, it is impossible to hermetically seal discourses and meanings, since the rhizomatic connections between network nodes can be restored in any way, thereby excluding any final fixation. In other words, oppositional discourses can always emerge in new, unpredictable discursive-material configurations that go beyond state control.

Post-structuralist theorists were able to predict this theoretically four decades ago, when no digital networks existed yet. With their emergence, however, unprecedented configurations of discursive-material formations have become a reality, which can form, collapse, and re-emerge in the most unexpected ways. It has now become much more difficult to administratively keep alternative meanings outside the public spheres of nation states.

This was clearly demonstrated by Zelensky’s sanctions against oppositionists, which triggered numerous discursive-material transformations that allowed oppositional discourse to escape the attempt at final closure meant to exclude it. Alternative international platforms that were sympathetic to alternative perspectives played a role on the material level by inviting oppositional voices from banned local media to sustain their discourse in new spaces.

A rhetorical intervention by a sitting president — the denouncing of anybody propagating alternative outlooks as an enemy of the state — was sufficient to achieve the physical shutting down of oppositional channels and the silencing or driving away of oppositional journalists. However, it was not enough to accomplish a hermetic closure of the oppositional discourse on a global scale, as evidenced by the coverage of AntiWar News, the Grayzone, MintPress News, and other U.S. media that took an oppositional stance toward the U.S. policy of silence in the face of Ukraine’s rising authoritarianism. By drawing on each other, such media created the discursive-material assemblage of a global network providing alternative information.

There is one problem that complicates the situation, however. Oppositional discourse may appear weakened by constant attempts to reconfigure the material-discursive assemblages of the opposition in order to avoid closures. Some digital users may not have the technical knowledge to switch between platforms; they may not speak foreign languages; or they may simply not have the time to keep up with changes. Here it is necessary to take into account that the ability of digital platforms to strengthen or weaken the discourse depends on various factors such as popularity, technological capability, ease of access [technological or linguistic], and so forth.

The material aspects of discursive-material assemblages play a significant role in weakening or strengthening the mobilization potential of opposition discourses. In this sense, the networked assemblage of those who oppose attempts by the U. S.-Ukrainian alliance to silence alternative voices appears much weaker than the networked assemblage of the mainstream, which controls a huge amount of global resources. By establishing discursive closures and supporting digital silence regarding the misdeeds of local autocrats, global digital media may help sustain a transnational networked authoritarianism that enables and strengthens their rule.

The problem with TNA’s strict dichotomization of the extremely complex global socio-political landscape (evil vs good, democracy vs autocracy, propagandists vs oppositionists, and so forth) is that it renders completely invisible all the nuances of the situation and the diversity of positions among those involved. With such dichotomization, it becomes nearly impossible for a global audience to understand the situation. People around the world simply do not have the information resources to understand the conflict: What is it all about? How did it start? What were the reasons why Russia launched its SMO, other than some incomprehensible desire to conquer the entire world, as Zelensky and his partners suggest? Why would an American blogger glorify this military operation and condemn the dictatorship of Zelensky, contrary to what the dominant discourse dictates? The TNA presentation of Lira’s history discussed in this article does not provide any answers to such questions, as it excludes all alternative points of view.

The absorption of the public sphere by corporate and political interests prevent meaningful and informed debate, thereby eliminating the possibility of conflict resolution through respectful and peaceful discussion of issues. Given that the exclusion of alternative viewpoints and the suppression of those who promote themcan have dire consequences — fostering the uniformity of opinion, undermining the foundations of inclusive democratic government, promoting bad political decisions, fomenting domestic and global conflicts, and so forth — there are growing calls among journalists and scholars to make the process of media production more inclusive.

Only if alternative perspectives are included in media reports on international conflicts can people around the world hope to understand their complexity. For even the beginning of a peace process to become a reality, it is necessary to move away from dichotomies, make the strong boundaries between ourselves and others more permeable, and promote a pluralism of opinions and positions.

Conclusions

Drawing on the insight of scholars arguing that any situation in which digital media technologies reinforce authoritarian politics may be referred to as DA, this paper considered an instance of local authoritarianism sustained through silence in the global digital network of democratic media that, due to geopolitical considerations, established a transnational discursive closure by refraining from covering the onset of authoritarian rule within a particular society. Using the case of Gonzalo Lira, an American blogger of Chilean descent who died in a Ukrainian prison after being charged with producing and disseminating materials that justified Russia’s Special Military Operation, this paper investigated how Lira’s story was reported by Ukrainian and U.S. digital media.

It was found that in both countries the majority of the outlets with the largest audiences ignored the topic altogether; meanwhile, the framing used by every outlet reporting on the issue was episodic — even the U.S. media sympathetic to Lira presented his case without considering it in the broader context of increasingly authoritarian rule in Ukraine and the persecution of dissidents there. It was also found that none of the Ukrainian media that reported on Lira’s death were sympathetic to the blogger, and none of them connected his case to the authoritarianism of the Ukrainian government. These findings lead us to conclude that global digital media can reinforce local DA through establishing discursive closures. This creates a transnational networked authoritarianism that suppresses alternative viewpoints for geopolitical reasons.

This is what should be called “digital silence”, which has serious consequences for the global world. TNA’s tendency to portray the world in simplistic terms of good and evil (civilization versus barbarism or democracy versus autocracy) makes negotiations and compromises difficult. In the domestic context, the simplification of reality by DA increases social polarization, reinforces authoritarian tendencies in government, and worsens the quality of democratic conditions. The transformation of DA into TNA with the aim of creating international coalitions against common enemies could increase polarization in the international arena. This leads to a worldwide normalization of an extremely simplified definition of a problem of global significance: a regional war with a nuclear power that could have catastrophic consequences for the entire world.