Marta Dyczok

Associate Professor (Joint Appointment with History)

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D.Phil., University of Oxford
Telephone: 519.661.2111 ext. 84982
E-mail: mdyczok@uwo.ca
Office: Lawson Hall 2246

Orcid: https://orcid.org/my-orcid?orcid=0000-0002-8106-8589
Google Scholar: https://scholar.google.ca/citations?hl=en&user=aR2VruYAAAAJ
Research Gate: https://www.researchgate.net/profile/Marta-Dyczok?ev=hdr_xprf

Research Interests

Professor Dyczok specializes in Ukraine within the broader context of international politics and history. Her research interests encompass social, digital, and mass media; decolonization and historical politics; information warfare; migration; post-communist transitions; and World War II.

Check out the documentary series which features among others Professor Dyczok: “Collapse. How Ukrainians Destroyed the Evil Empire.” https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y2VN9n1HbSI.

Current Research Projects

1. Social Media and the Russo-Ukrainian War: A Double-Edged Sword

This project investigates how modern armed conflict transforms digital information flows, with Ukraine serving as a central case study. As Ukraine defends its sovereignty, it simultaneously engages in a digitally mediated struggle. Internationally owned social media platforms are the vehicles that disseminate both credible information and widespread disinformation. In conditions of war this can be the difference between life and death. Social media, in this context, emerges as a complex and paradoxical tool: a double-edged sword. Ukraine offers a compelling case study for rethinking the dynamics of communication in the digital age.

2. How Has Media in Ukraine Changed Since Independence?

This project analyses media developments in Ukraine since it gained independence from the USSR. It aims to provide a broad overview by looking at the main issues and trends and is based on in-depth interviews with key actors as well as on documents, reports, and sociological data.

3. The Volunteer

This project is an authorized biography of a young man who joined a volunteer battalion in Ukraine in spring of 2014, whom I met during an oath taking ceremony and stayed in contact with. His story will illustrate the personal experience of the Russo-Ukrainian war.

4. Media and Memory: Representations of Ukrainians Displaced by World War II Then and Now

This research project examines how media representations of Ukrainians displaced during World War II shaped collective memory and how this story challenges dominant narratives. It draws on my two earlier studies: The Grand Alliance and Ukrainian Refugees (2000) and Media, Democracy and Freedom (2009). (This project was put on hold when Russia launched an undeclared, hybrid war against Ukraine and I turned my research focus to topics related to current events. It will be resumed during my next sabbatical.)

5. Infotainment of Steroids in Ukraine: How a Virtual Candidate Won a Landslide Presidential Victory

This study unpacks how actor-businessman Volodymyr Zelensky won a landslide presidential victory without campaigning in traditional ways. Instead, he became business partners with Ihor Kolomoisky, one of Ukraine’s richest men who also owned a media empire and turned an entertainment show into political advertising. The theoretical frames of infotainment and political economy are used to explain the complex relationship between politics, entertainment, media and money.

6. The Pandemic and Student Media Use

This study documented how students were using media in the early phase of the pandemic and compares it to their previous media usage to see what, if any, changes occurred, and the reasons for this. The findings will speak to the larger questions of the role and power of different forms of media: professional/traditional/social, and generational variations in this.

Selected Publications

Books

Refereed Journal Articles

  • Dyczok, Marta and Yerin Chung. "Zelens'kyi uses his communication skills as a weapon of war." Canadian Slavonic Papers / Revue Canadienne des Slavistes. Published online: 06 September. https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/00085006.2022.2106699.
  • 2022. Dyczok, Marta. "Ukraine's Information Warriors." Journal of Democracy. Pubilshed online 9 March. https://www.journalofdemocracy.org/ukraines-information-warriors/
  • 2015-16: Dyczok, Marta, “History, Memory, and Media,” Harvard Ukrainian Studies, Vol. 34, No. 1-4: 431-446.
  • 2014: Dyczok, Marta, “Ukraine’s Media in the Context of Global Cultural Convergence,” Demokratizatsiya, Vol. 22, No. 2 (Spring).
  • 2014: Dyczok, Marta, “Information wars: hegemony, counter-hegemony, propaganda, the use of force, and resistance,” Russian Journal of Communication, Vol. 6, Issue 2 (April).
  • 2006: Dyczok, Marta, “Was Kuchma’s Censorship Effective? Mass media in Ukraine  before 2004.” Europe-Asia Studies, Vol. 58, No. 2: 215-238, NOMINATED for the AAUS Article Prize 2007.
  • 2006: Dyczok, Marta, Sketches from Crimea’s Media Landscape, MediaKrytyka Journal, University of L’viv, Ukraine No. 13 (October).
  • 2005: Dyczok, Marta, “Breaking Through the Information Blockade: Election and Revolution in Ukraine 2004,” Canadian Slavonic Papers/Revue canadienne des slavistes Vol. XLVII, Nos. 3-4. (September-December 2005): 241-266; [Reprinted in Bohdan Harasymiw, in collaboration with Ilnytzkyj, Oleh S. eds. Aspects of the Orange Revolution II. Information and Manipulation Strategies in the 2004 Ukrainian Presidential Elections (Soviet and Post-Soviet Politics and Society, vol. 64 Stuttgart & Hannover: ibidem-Verlag].

Book Chapters

  • Dyczok, Marta. Forthcoming, 2026. “Russia’s All-Out War is Changing Social Media Usage in Ukraine,” in Oleksandr Pankieiev (ed.) The Russo-Ukrainian War: Russia's Information Warfare Strategies in Comparative Perspective. Edmonton: Canadian Institute of Ukrainian Studies.
  • 2025: Dyczok, Marta. “More than a year into the escalated war finds Ukraine with a stronger voice in Western media.” in Narratives of the Russo-Ukrainian War. A Look Within and Without. Edited by Oleksandr Pankieiev. Foreword by Natalia Khanenko-Friesen. Chapter 27. Hanover: ibidem-Verlag, distributed by Columbia University Press. https://cup.columbia.edu/book/narratives-of-the-russo-ukrainian-war/9783838219646/.
  • Dyczok, Marta. 2023. “What’s Changed? Media and Mobilization,” in Ihor Poshyvailo and Larysa Onyshko (eds.) The Revolution of Dignity: Towards History (Kyiv: National Museum of the Revolution of Dignity). https://www.maidanmuseum.org/uk/publications.
  • 2021: Dyczok, Marta and Diana Dutsyk. “Ukraine’s Media: A Field Where Power is Contested,” in Matthew Rojansky, Georgiy Kasianov, and Mykhailo Minakov (eds.) From 'the Ukraine' to Ukraine: History of Contemporary Ukraine (1991-2020) (Hanover: ibidem-Verlag/Wilson Center, distributed by Columbia University Press).
  • 2018: Dyczok, Marta, “Ukraine’s Media in the Context of Global Cultural Convergence,” in Marlene Laruelle and Peter Rollberg (eds.) Mass Media in the Post-Soviet World: Market Forces, State Actors, and Political Manipulation in the Informational Environment after Communism (New York and Hanover: Columbia University Press and ibidem-Verlag) (nominated for book prize).
  • 2016: Dyczok, Marta, “History, Memory, and Media”, in Serhiy Plokhii (ed.) The Future of the Past: New Perspectives on Ukrainian History (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, forthcoming).
  • 2015: Dyczok, Marta, “Mass Media Framing, Representations, and Impact on Public Opinion,” in David Marples and Frederick V. Mills (eds.) Euromaidan (ibidem-Verlag and Columbia University Press) (refereed).
  • 2015: Dyczok, Marta, “Threats to Free Speech in Ukraine: The Bigger Picture,” in Giovanna Brogi, Marta Dyczok and Oxana Pachlovska (eds.) Ukraine Twenty Years After Independence: Assessments, Perspectives, Challenges (Bern: Peter Lang).
  • 2015: Dyczok, Marta, “The Ukraine Story in Western Media,” in Agnieszka Pikulicka-Wilczewska and Richard Sakwa (eds.) Ukraine and Russia: People, Politics, Propaganda, and Perspectives (London: e-international relations) (refereed).
  • 2012: “Ukraine” in The Oxford Companion to Comparative Politics (Oxford University Press).
  • 2012: “Re-examining the World War II Ukrainian Refugee Experience,” in Vladyslav Hrynevych and Myron Stakhiv (eds.) Сучасні дискусії про Другу світову війну [Contemporary Debates about World War II] (L’viv, Nova Doba).
  • 2011: Dyczok, Marta, “Media Power and Ukraine’s Revolutionary Moments,” in Jerzy Onuch and Olya Onuch (eds.) Revolutionary Moments (Kyiv).
  • 2009: "Do the Media Matter? Focus on Ukraine," in Marta Dyczok and Oxana Gaman-Golutvina (eds.) Media, Freedom and Democracy: The Post-Communist Experience. (Bern: Peter Lang).
  • 2009: “Ukraine’s Changing Communicative Space: Destination Europe or the Soviet Past?” in Larissa M. L. Zaleska Onyshkevych and Maria G. Rewakowicz (eds.) Contemporary Ukraine and Its European Cultural Identity (New York, M. E. Sharpe).
  • 2009: “Media in Ukraine: Between Revolution and Election (2004-2006),” in Andrej N. Lushnycky, and Mykola Riabchuk, (eds.) Ukraine on its Meandering Path Between East and West. Interdisciplinary Studies on Central and Eastern Europe. Vol. 4 (Bern: Peter Lang).

Multimedia: News, Media, Films, Podcasts and other Presentations (Selected Appearances)

Awards and Distinctions

  • 2011: Fellow Harvard Ukrainian Research Institute
  • 2011-Present: Adjunct Professor National University of the Kyiv Mohyla Academy, Ukraine
  • 2005-2006: Fellow, Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars, Washington, DC
  • 1998-Present: Fellow Centre for European and Eurasian Studies, Munk Centre, University of Toronto
  • 2001-Present: Coordinating Committee Member Petro Jacyk Programme for the Study of Ukraine, University of Toronto