The ten-episode project will tell how the Ukrainian media field has changed since the start of the full-scale russian aggression and about the new experience that journalists in Ukraine have unwittingly gained.
The first episodes of “Media at War. Transformation” project will premiere on April 10th on ICTV channel. Later, it will appear on FILM.UA Group’s YouTube channel. There are 10 episodes in total, and the new ones will be released every week. The work on the project started last March, while most filming took place late summer – early autumn.
The documentary series explores different types and fields of media: TV, YouTube, social media, radio, podcasts, war journalism, the work of foreign journalists in Ukraine and Ukrainian ones abroad. Its main goal is to note the changes in media since February 24th, 2022. Every episode is dedicated to a certain media area, and its characters share their working experience during the war: how and where the full-scale invasion has found them, how their work changed, and what personal and professional transformations they had to go through during this time.
Watch the teaser of the project at the following link.
The war has changed our society along with the media space. And it is not only about the fact that today's Ukrainian media have to live and work under new circumstances. The topics, characters, methods, messages, objectives, and even the language of the media space have changed.
Media have become a robust weapon in the information war, working equally efficiently in the hands of both experienced professionals and novices. They not just inform but also help to unite the society, support the military, search missing people, record war crimes etc.
Today, the first three episodes were released. They are dedicated to TV, YouTube, and audio media (radio and podcasts). The first one tells about the joint TV marathon “United news”, an unprecedented project even at a global scale – the country’s largest TV channels have been running 24/7. It will show the viewers the backstage of the marathon, how the work on TV has changed under the martial law, and how the life of the newsrooms was organized in the first weeks of the full-scale war. The second episode explores the transformation of Ukrainian YouTube channels, from the topics and language to the number of views, using three channels as an example: UkrYoutubeProject, Toronto TV, and Bombardyr. The third video reveals the changes in radio and podcasts, when the demand on the content in Ukrainian language has grown manyfold. Its characters are the biggest Ukrainian podcast producer The Ukrainians Audio, Poplava project, and Radio NV.
Along with the transformations in media, the project also explores the personal transformations of the media professionals. For example, famous TV host Kateryna Osadcha, who used to pose as a “socialite”, created a Telegram channel at the beginning of the full-scale invasion to help search for the missing people. Later, it has now grown into a large-scale project called Find Your Ones. In the episode dedicated to social media, she admits: “I would never like to know how the bodies are identified. But now, we are looking for the missing, and in the TV format as well.”
The characters of Media at War. Transformation features influencer Ihor Lachenkov, founder of Lachen Pyshe Telegram channel; TV hosts Solomiya Vitvitska (1+1 channel), Vadym Karpiak (ICTV), and Yevhen Agarkov (Pershyi); sports journalist Roman Bebekh and Ukrainian Olympian Vladyslav Heraskevych, YouTubers Maksym Shcherbyna and Yevhen Synelnykov; documentary filmmaker Andrii Lytvynenko; author and host of the Frontova Poplava podcast Oleh Novikov; editor-in-chief of Radio NV Oleksii Tarasov; chief of the Ukrainian bureau of The New York Times Andrew E. Kramer; representatives of TV channels from Mykolaiv, Lviv, and Trostianets; military journalist Marian Kushnir; head of the Molfar OSINT community Artem Starosek, and many others.
“The idea of the project appeared in the first days of the full-scale russian invasion in Ukraine. As most Ukrainians, we have gone through a very broad palette of feelings, from total confusion to an unbearable desire to resist, to help others, to do something to bring our victory closer. We observed how the Ukrainian media were changing along with the Ukrainian society. As filmmakers, we saw a certain mission in documenting the changes in our media during the war and showing how journalists work in the new conditions,” – says Olesia Lukyanenko, the creative producer of the project.
New episodes will be released on FILM.UA Group’s YouTube channel after the premiere on ICTV, three episodes per week. Every episode will have English subs, because these stories should be heard not only in Ukraine, but all around the world. Exclusive materials collected by the authors of the project but not included in the video will be published at this link on the special partner project of Media Business Reports.
FYI
Genre: documentary
Format: 10 episodes
Timing: 15 min.
Authors: Oksana Chyzh, Yuliia Kozyriatska, Mykola But, Anastasiia Rakhmanina, Dmytro Kochnev
Director: Dmytro Kochnev
Editor: Anastasiia Rakhmanina
Producers: Serhii Demydov, Olesia Lukyanenko
Production: FILM.UA Television
