Securitizing Russian disinformation? An argumentative discourse analysis of MEPs speeches in European Parliament debates (2014–2024)

Abstract

This thesis examines how the European Parliament (EP) has discursively framed Russian disinformation between 2014 and 2024 and whether such framings amount to a process of collective securitization. While the European Union (EU) has already enacted extraordinary measures—such as the 2022 ban on Russia Today and Sputnik—that reflect the securitization of disinformation at the policy level, less attention has been paid to the argumentative dynamics that shaped these outcomes. To address this gap, the study analyses seven key plenary debates in which Members of the European Parliament (MEPs) addressed Russian Disinformation, propaganda, foreign interference, and the role of information manipulation in hybrid warfare against EU (or Europe). Drawing on securitization theory and operationalizing Argumentative Discourse Analysis through Toulmin’s model of argumentation, the research systematically identifies claims, warrants, backings, and rebuttals that structured the debates. The findings reveal that Russian disinformation was predominantly framed as a threat to democratic integrity, societal cohesion, and European security, with war metaphors and appeals to EU values serving as recurrent justificatory warrants. At the same time, divergences emerged: some MEPs stressed the primacy of media freedom and cautioned against securitization’s potential overreach, while others supported exceptional measures as necessary to protect democracy. The analysis demonstrates that the EP has functioned as a discursive arena in which competing arguments nonetheless coalesced into a broad security logic, amounting to a collective securitization of Russian disinformation. By foregrounding the argumentative mechanisms underpinning this process, the thesis contributes to both securitization theory and the literature on hybrid threats, while offering insight into the EU’s evolving struggle to reconcile security imperatives with democratic freedoms in the information domain.