Maxim Alyukov
Maxim Alyukov is a research fellow at King's Russia Institute (King's College London, United Kingdom) and a researcher with Public Sociology Laboratory. His research focuses on media, political communication, and political cognition in autocracies with a particular focus on Russia. He relies on qualitative and quantitative methods to explore how citizens make sense of the political world in authoritarian environments and in new hybrid media systems.
Maxim holds a PhD in social sciences from the University of Helsinki and an MA in sociology from the European University at Saint-Petersburg. In the dissertation, he applied the conceptual apparatuses of cognitive and political psychology to understand media news reception under Russia's authoritarian regime. Maxim's research has been published in a variety of disciplinary and area studies journals, including Political Communication, Nature Human Behaviour, Politics, Qualitative Psychology, and Europe-Asia Studies. He also contributes to the public discussion by writing for non-academic media, such as The Moscow Times and Open Democracy, and making appearances on TV and radio, including BBC, Al Jazeera, Deutsche Welle, Voice of America, CBC. His commentary and research have featured in outlets including Al Jazeera, New York Times, Washington Post, Foreign Affairs, Time Magazine, The Times, The Economist, Newsweek, France 24, The Moscow Times, Open Democracy, Coda Story, and many others.
Selected Publications
Articles
Alyukov, M. (2023). Harnessing distrust: News, credibility heuristics, and war in an authoritarian regime. Political Communication 40(5), 527-554.
Alyukov, M. (2022). Propaganda, authoritarianism and Russia's invasion of Ukraine. Nature Human Behaviour 6, 763-765.
Alyukov, M. (2022). Making sense of the news in an authoritarian regime: Russian television viewers' reception of the Russia-Ukraine conflict. Europe-Asia Studies, 74(3), 337-359.
Alyukov, M., & Erpyleva, S. (2022). Collective cognitive tasks as a method for studying political reasoning. Qualitative Psychology, 9(1), 27-44.
Alyukov, M. (2022). Online patriots and traitors: The war, authoritarianism, and state-sponsored digital vigilantism in Russia. Mediapolis: A Journal of Cities and Culture, 7(2).
Alyukov, M. (2021). News reception and authoritarian control in a hybrid media system: Russian TV viewers and the Russia-Ukraine conflict. Politics. Epub ahead of print 24 August.
Alyukov, M. (2019). Von Moskaus gnaden: Genese und geist der „Volksrepublik Donezk." Osteuropa, 3-4, 123-131.
Media
Alyukov, M. (November 29, 2022). How (not) to interpret Russian political talk shows. Moscow Times.
Alyukov, M. (October 29, 2022). Propaganda, political apathy, and authoritarianism in Russia. NYU Jordan Center Blog.
Alyukov, M., Kunilovskaya, & Semenov, A. (November 7, 2022). Putin fans or Kremlin bots? War and mobilisation across Russian social media platforms. Re:Russia.
Alyukov, M., Kunilovskaya, M., & Semenov, A. (October 18, 2022). Mobilising for war: State-controlled networks and war propaganda on Russian social media. Russia Post.
Alyukov, M. (March 9, 2022). In Russia, polls are a political weapon. Open Democracy.
Alyukov, M. (February 25, 2022). How to sell a war to those who do not want it? King's College London.
Alyukov, M. (September 7, 2018). Conspiracy theory has gone mainstream in Russia. But how does it work? Open Democracy.
Alyukov, M. (May 8, 2017). How does Russian TV propaganda really work? Open Democracy.
Reports
Alyukov, M., Kunilovskaya, M., Semenov, A. (2023). Getting Messages Across: War Propaganda in Russian Press and Social Media (July - September 2022). The Final Monitoring Report. Russian Election Monitor.
Alyukov, M., Kunilovskaya, M., & Semenov, A. (2022). Propaganda Setbacks and Appropriation of Anti-war language: "Special Military Operation" in Russian Mass Media and Social Networks (February-July 2022). Monitoring Report.
Other
Alyukov, M. (2021). Making sense of the news under an electoral authoritarian regime: Russian TV viewers and the Russia-Ukraine conflict [Doctoral Dissertation]. Helsinki: Helsinki University Press.
Alyukov, M. (2023). Harnessing distrust: News, credibility heuristics, and war in an authoritarian regime. Political Communication 40(5), 527-554.
Alyukov, M. (2022). Propaganda, authoritarianism and Russia's invasion of Ukraine. Nature Human Behaviour 6, 763-765.
Alyukov, M. (2022). Making sense of the news in an authoritarian regime: Russian television viewers' reception of the Russia-Ukraine conflict. Europe-Asia Studies, 74(3), 337-359.
Alyukov, M., & Erpyleva, S. (2022). Collective cognitive tasks as a method for studying political reasoning. Qualitative Psychology, 9(1), 27-44.
Alyukov, M. (2022). Online patriots and traitors: The war, authoritarianism, and state-sponsored digital vigilantism in Russia. Mediapolis: A Journal of Cities and Culture, 7(2).
Alyukov, M. (2021). News reception and authoritarian control in a hybrid media system: Russian TV viewers and the Russia-Ukraine conflict. Politics. Epub ahead of print 24 August.
Alyukov, M. (2019). Von Moskaus gnaden: Genese und geist der „Volksrepublik Donezk." Osteuropa, 3-4, 123-131.
Media
Alyukov, M. (November 29, 2022). How (not) to interpret Russian political talk shows. Moscow Times.
Alyukov, M. (October 29, 2022). Propaganda, political apathy, and authoritarianism in Russia. NYU Jordan Center Blog.
Alyukov, M., Kunilovskaya, & Semenov, A. (November 7, 2022). Putin fans or Kremlin bots? War and mobilisation across Russian social media platforms. Re:Russia.
Alyukov, M., Kunilovskaya, M., & Semenov, A. (October 18, 2022). Mobilising for war: State-controlled networks and war propaganda on Russian social media. Russia Post.
Alyukov, M. (March 9, 2022). In Russia, polls are a political weapon. Open Democracy.
Alyukov, M. (February 25, 2022). How to sell a war to those who do not want it? King's College London.
Alyukov, M. (September 7, 2018). Conspiracy theory has gone mainstream in Russia. But how does it work? Open Democracy.
Alyukov, M. (May 8, 2017). How does Russian TV propaganda really work? Open Democracy.
Reports
Alyukov, M., Kunilovskaya, M., Semenov, A. (2023). Getting Messages Across: War Propaganda in Russian Press and Social Media (July - September 2022). The Final Monitoring Report. Russian Election Monitor.
Alyukov, M., Kunilovskaya, M., & Semenov, A. (2022). Propaganda Setbacks and Appropriation of Anti-war language: "Special Military Operation" in Russian Mass Media and Social Networks (February-July 2022). Monitoring Report.
Other
Alyukov, M. (2021). Making sense of the news under an electoral authoritarian regime: Russian TV viewers and the Russia-Ukraine conflict [Doctoral Dissertation]. Helsinki: Helsinki University Press.
Teaching Experience
This course examines the main approaches to the analysis of media, and their relation to politics and public opinion. How do media institutions function? How does media influence elites, and how do elites influence media? How does media—and TV in particular—affect the views, opinions, behaviors of people as well as the way people cast ballots in elections? How do people perceive, remember, and analyze information received from the media, and how do they form opinions and make decisions based on this information? What is the role of new media, such as the Internet and social networks, in politics and opinion formation? The course considers all these questions through the lenses of both classical and contemporary literature in media and communication research, social and cognitive psychology, sociology and political science. The course also includes a section focusing on the specific features of the post-soviet media landscape, with a particular focus on Russia. This course is both theoretical and practical: it includes the application of knowledge and methods from political communication by analyzing and explaining real news.
This course focuses on the complex relationships between media, society, and the individual. How do mass communication technologies, such as newspaper, radio, and television, shape the political, social, and economic fabric of society? How do economic conditions, social practices, and political process influence the functioning of mass media technologies? How do people use media and vice versa? How do new media, such as the Internet, social networks, and videogames, replot the media landscape, social practices, and political processes? These are some of the questions addressed in this course. This course has a threefold structure. The first part addresses mass communication technologies of the 20th century—newspaper, radio, and television. The second part focuses on more recent forms of mass communication, such as the Internet, videogames, and social media. The third part of the course considers the issues which arise when these boundaries are blurred and different types of media and different genres intersect, such as convergence, hybridization, and infotainment.
This course focuses on the main approaches to the analysis of news in sociology and related disciplines. How do external factors, such as market, politics, and society, affect news media? How do internal factors, such as journalists' views, routines, and organizational structures, affect news organizations? How do news media affect audiences, and how do audiences perceive, remember, and make sense of news? What is the role of new media, such as the Internet and social media, in politics and the formation of public opinion? The course addresses these issues relying on classical and contemporary theories in the sociology of media, communication theory, and political science. The course is structured around exploring different approaches. Instead of analyzing particular media (e.g., television, radio, cinema, newspaper), each section demonstrates a specific approach to the analysis of news. The first section focuses on the analysis of news through the institutional and external context around it such as market, politics, and the public's demands. The second section covers approaches to the analysis of the internal structure of news organizations. The third section covers approaches dealing with media content produced by news organizations. The fourth section focuses on approaches to the analysis of the audience's reception. The fifth section includes examples of the analysis of new media and the effects of new media on mass communications. In addition to classical theories, each section introduces research based on the application of these theories to Russian society.
Until very recently, scholars—and society in general—considered the only real audience of the video game industry to be children and dedicated fans. Accordingly, when studies dealt with video games, they mainly focused on their influence on socialization and child development. Today however, with the growth of the video game market to levels almost matching that of the film industry, it is widely acknowledged that games are bought and played by very different social and age groups. This in turn has led to the rapid growth of a separate academic field of game studies, which we will consider in this course. As well as examining the history of video games, this course will offer various research approaches for studying them in more critical depth. What is a video game—is it a game or a narrative? What are the major genres of video games, and how did they evolve? How are games related to identity, sexuality, violence, education, economy, and politics? What is counter-gaming, and how have the modifications produced by gamers themselves become embedded in the video game industry? What is the relationship between war, the military-industrial complex, and video games? And how can video games contribute to science? We will address these and many other questions through the multiple theories and research that constitute the emerging field of game studies.
This course is a survey of the tradition of European political and philosophical thought from Plato to Foucault. It includes a variety of classical works from Greek and Roman antiquity, the Middle Ages, early Modernity, the Enlightenment, and the 20th century. It aims to give students a sense of the historical contingency of ideas, as well as the common concerns that have animated thinkers in different times and places.
This course aims at introducing undergraduate students to various types of writing, such as creative and academic writing and teaches students how to engage with texts through analysis and interpretation. It covers the principles of traditional rhetoric, the structure of academic argument, and new writing models designed to develop one's creativity. The course helps students acquire and begin to develop the writing and thinking skills essential in both professional and everyday life. In addition, WTAI aims at familiarizing students with different types of academic and creative discourses and genres: philosophical essays, scientific articles, prose, poetry, criticism, etc.
