Reports
Latvia Weekly: Russia and European Parliament elections
In the examined week, content primarily surrounded themes of corruption mainly relating to the former prime minister and current foreign minister Krisjanis Karins and Russia concerning potential threats from Russia, trade with Russia, and communication from the government regarding these issues as well as the treatment of Russian diaspora in Latvia. The narratives of corruption and harmful treatment of the Russian diaspora in Latvia have been present in the prior examined months, whereas the argument on Latvia to retain some form of economic cooperation with Russia resulted from an initiative in the parliament to ban all such activities. When comparing the audience's response regarding similar content concerning the treatment of the Russian diaspora in Latvia on different platforms (Facebook and Twitter), the engagement reached on Twitter is noticeably more critical, calling out the author's logistical inconsistencies and misrepresentation of facts.
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Latvia Monthly: Former Commander warning of russian threat
About an Article published by la.lv, a leading nationalistic voice in the Latvian political X (Twitter) community, she published a tweet implying that Russia poses a realistic threat to Latvia and that if this threat materializes, NATO and Article 5 will demonstrably fail.
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Latvia Weekly: Media and Trump
During the examined week, the content primarily surrounded previously mentioned narratives, such as the need to support Donald Trump, corruption within the coalition government, the Istanbul Convention, and potential threats by Russia. A video published on Tiktok regarding a German warship in Riga garnered 740k views and 1,5k comments. The opinions expressed in the comments show two things: first, there is trust in the effectiveness of NATO and second, there is a brief that Russian threats might materialise shortly. Regarding the form of the content, TikTok remains the platform that creates the most engagement and reaches a larger audience. Some of the examined content creators are increasingly more active on Twitter, and engagement is not as high as in TikTok, but it is now comparable to that of Facebook.
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Latvia Weekly: Media and Trump
In the examined week, the content surrounded domestic issues such as corruption and media funding and international topics such as the upcoming US elections, NATO and assistance for Ukraine. Most notably, there is a highly critical view of the capabilities and the effectiveness of NATO, which were also prominent in the prior two weeks. The reasoning for such claims is rooted in the unwillingness of other NATO states to help in the case of an attack. Regarding content, the leading platform remains TikTok which garners the most engagement and there is a significant decrease in engagement with content published on Facebook. Although some of the examined content creators are increasingly more active on Twitter/X, engagement remains low.
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