Serge Poliakoff

Since October 2021

• Research Associate and Doctoral Student at the Chair of Political Communication with a Focus on Eastern Europe and the Post-Soviet Region within the ERC Consolidator Grant Research Group: The Consequences of the Internet for Russia's Informational Influence Abroad (RUSINFORM) with Prof. Dr. Florian Töpfl at the University of Passau

2015 to 2016

• Retraining as Web-Developer at ITMO University in Saint Petersburg, Russia (JavaScript, PHP, MySQL, HTML, CSS)

2011 to 2013

• Master's studies in Journalism at Saint Petersburg State University. Master's thesis: Promotion of a business publication in mass media

2007 to 2011 

• Bachelor's studies in Journalism at Saint Petersburg State University. Bachelor's thesis: Ideological vocabulary in media text

April 2020 to September 2021 

• Frontend Engineer at travel audience GmbH in Berlin 

July 2017 to April 2020 

• Junior Frontend Developer at travel audience GmbH in Berlin

• Poliakoff, S. (Arpil 2024). Decline of the Private Propaganda Factory: Yevgeny Prigozhin's Patriot Media Group as an Example of the Decay of the Journalistic Profession in Russia. Presentation at the Uppsala Forum workshop "Media, War and (National) Identity: The Changing Notions of the National Self in Russia, Ukraine, Belarus, Caucasus, and Eurasia" at the Institute for Russian and Eurasian Studies (IRES), Department of Media and Communication, 11th of April 2024, Uppsala, Sweden.
• Poliakoff, S. (March 2024). Tech Talk: Inside Troll Farms. Presentation at the The German Council on Foreign Relations (DGAP), 15 of March 2024, Berlin, Germany.
• Poliakoff, S. (March 2023). How the Wagner group is being glorified by Russian media, film, music and social media. Presentation at the The International Public and Political Communication (IPPC) Conference at the University of Sheffield, 24 of March 2023, Sheffield, United Kingdom.

• Kling, J. & Poliakoff, S. (July 2024). Propaganda Amplification on Social Networking Sites: How Content Moderation Influenced Russia’s News Ecosystem on Facebook since Russia’s Full-scale Invasion of Ukraine. Presentation at the International Conference on Social Media & Society 2024, July 16-18, London, United Kingdom.

• Kling, J. & Poliakoff, S. (April 2024). Propaganda Amplification on Social Networking Sites: How Russia's News Ecosystem Changed on Facebook since Russia's Full-scale Invasion of Ukraine. Presentation at the 19th Annual Doctoral Conference 2024 (Re)searching Power Emerging approaches across Disciplines" at the Central European University (CEU), 19th of April 2024, Vienna, Austria.

• Poliakoff, S. (Apr. 2024). The Downfall of Private Propaganda Factory: Organisational Behaviour of Yevgeny Prigozhin’s Patriot Media Group. Presentation at the BASEES Annual Conference 2024, April 5-7, Cambridge, United Kingdom.

• Poliakoff, S. (Nov. 2023). Propaganda Factory: Organisational Behaviour of Yevgeny Prigozhin’s Patriot Media Group. Presentation at the PechaKucha Night at ZoIS Conference 2023, 16 of November 2023, Berlin, Germany

• Poliakoff, S. (Oct. 2023). The CVs of the Propaganda Workers at Russia’s Internet Research Agency: Socio-demographics, Tasks, and Career Paths (2013-2021). Presentation at the Aleksanteri Conference 2022 "Decolonizing Space in the Global East", 2023, October 25-27, Helsinki, Finland.

• Poliakoff, S. & Toepfl, F. (May 2023). The CVs of the Kremlin’s Trolls: Demographics, Skills, and Career Paths of the Internet Research Agency’s Work Force. Presentation at the ICA 2023, 25-29 of May 2023, Toronto, Canada.
• Poliakoff, S. (Feb. 2023). Who produced the Internet Research Agency's content? The demographics, history and organisation of the Kremlin trolls. Presentation at the 2023 Digital Media Research Centre’s Summer School, 7-10 of February 2023, Brisbane, Australia.
• Poliakoff, S. (Feb. 2023). Demographics, Self-Perception and Career Paths of the Internet Research Agency’s Work Force. Presentation at the Australasian Association for Communist and Post-Communist Studies (AACaPS), 2-3 of February 2023, Sydney, Australia.
• Poliakoff, S. & Toepfl, F. (Oct. 2022). Reconstructing the History of the “Internet Research Agency” as an Organization. Presentation at the Aleksanteri Conference 2022 "The New Era of Insecurity", 2022, October 26-28, Helsinki, Finland.

• Sokolova, A. (2024, May 8). Neyroseti — Za Putina [Neural networks are for Putin]. Novaya Gazeta Evropa. https://novayagazeta.eu/articles/2024/05/08/neiroseti-za-putina

• Sokolova, A., Kovalëv, S., Vasil’yev, G., & Orlova, K. (2024, February 16). Vselennaya Z. Telegram stal vazhnoy ploshchadkoy dlya rossiyskoy propagandy.  [Z Universe. Telegram has become an important platform for Russian propaganda] (in Russian). Novaya Gazeta Evropa. https://novayagazeta.eu/articles/2024/02/16/vselennaia-z

• Rainey, Sarah (8 October 2023). Who is Pavel Prigozhin – the 25-year-old who has inherited the Wagner group and its fortune? The Telegraph. https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2023/10/08/who-is-pavel-prigozhin/

• Vaittinen, Hanna (updated 24 June 2023). Kun Jevgeni Prigozhin oli 18-vuotias, hän kuristi ryöstämänsä naisen tajuttomaksi – Putinin sodanlietsojalla on kolme eri persoonaa [When Yevgeny Prigozhin was 18, he strangled a woman he had robbed unconscious - Putin's warmonger has three different personalities] (in Finnish). MTV Uutiset, Helsinki, Finland. https://www.mtvuutiset.fi/artikkeli/jevgeni-prigozhin-nain-vangista-ja-hotdog-kauppiaasta-tuli-julman-palkka-armeijan-johtaja-ja-putinin-liittolainen/8636100