Duplicate this page before you start, and write all your answers in your own copy.
Last lesson asked whether calling something a "white lie" or "tact" changes what it is. Today asks a harder question: who gets to choose the words, and what happens when the people choosing them are powerful?
Below are two short summaries of the war in Ukraine since February 2022. They are not quotations from any one article. Each is written in the vocabulary that one side's official and mainstream media have used.
Version A
Russia launched a special military operation to denazify and demilitarise Ukraine. The operation aims to protect people subjected to genocide by the Kyiv regime. Russian forces are liberating Ukrainian territory from nationalist battalions.
Version B
Russia invaded Ukraine in an unprovoked attack. Russian forces have killed thousands of civilians in occupied territories. Ukraine is defending its sovereignty against Russian aggression.
Do not decide who is right yet. Just look. Do not talk, and do not look at anyone else's answers.
✍️ Write here, on your own.
✍️ Before anyone discusses, write here: both versions come from powerful institutions, and both claim to be true. How would you decide which one is legitimate knowledge?
When everyone has finished, your teacher will ask a few people to read out their answer to the last question. Do not read on until then.
In each case below, someone decides what reaches an audience, and in which words. Read all three before you write.
On 28 February 2022, after requests from governments and the European Union, Meta restricted access to RT and Sputnik, two Russian state media outlets, on Facebook and Instagram across the EU.
"Russia's RT, Sputnik to Be Restricted by Facebook's Meta in EU," Global News (Reuters), 28 February 2022, https://globalnews.ca/news/8651174/meta-russia-rt-sputnik-restricted-eu.