Dr. Anna Ryzhova

Since April 2025

• Postdoctoral Researcher at the Chair of Political Communication with a Focus on Eastern Europe and the Post-Soviet Region within the bidt project "“Authoritarian AI: How large language models (LLMs) are adapted to Russia’s propaganda (AI-PROP)” (https://en.bidt.digital/research-project/authoritarian-ai-how-large-language-models-llms-align-with-russias-propaganda/)

Since July 2020

• 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

November 2018 to February 2019

• International Research Fellow at the Caucasus Resource Research Center (CRRC-Armenia) in Yerevan, Armenia
• Participation in the research project Study on Knowledge of Foreign Languages in Armenia in grant management and outreach communication activities

2017 to 2019

• Master's studies in Global Studies at the University of Gothenburg, Sweden
• Master's thesis: Strategic narratives and public diplomacy in the Russian news media portrayal of Sweden: case of Russia Today
• University of Gothenburg Study Scholarship
• Adlerbert Foundation Scholarship

2010 to 2015

• Bachelor's studies in Asian Studies at the Saint Petersburg State University, Russia
• Bachelor's thesis: The course of the first Indochina war as reflected in American, French, Vietnamese and Russian historiography
• Selected among students across Russia to study at the University of Social Sciences and Humanities in Vietnam from 2012 to 2013 with a full scholarship

Google Scholar profile: https://scholar.google.com/citations?user=pIKDqfkAAAAJ&hl=de&oi=ao

2026

• Ryzhova, A., Piwoni, E., & Toepfl, F. (2026). War, Feelings of Belonging, and News Diets: How Russia’s Full-Scale Invasion of Ukraine Did (Not) Change the News Repertoires of Russian Speakers in Germany. Digital Journalism, 1–19. https://doi.org/10.1080/21670811.2026.2751595
• Ryzhova, A., & Toepfl, F. (2026). In Need of Transnational News Literacies: What Migrant Audiences from an Autocracy Know About Their News. International Communication Gazette, 0(0). https://doi.org/10.1177/17480485261498120
• Ryzhova, A. (2026). Two Faces of Russia’s AI Strategy: Ethical Norm Entrepreneurship Abroad and Technologi cal Control at Home. Russian Analytical Digest, (347). doi.org/10.3929/ethz-c-000807700

2024

• Kravets, D., Beseler, A., Toepfl, F., & Ryzhova, A. (2024). The Kremlin-Controlled Search Engine Yandex as a Tool of Foreign Propaganda.Russian Analytical Digest, 313, 11–15. https://css.ethz.ch/en/publications/rad/rad-all-issues-and-articles/details.html?id=/n/o/3/1/no_313_russian_foreign_propaganda_in_occ
• Ryzhova, A., & Toepfl, F. (2024). The Consequences of Evidence- Versus Non-Evidence-Based Understandings of the “Truth”: How Russian Speakers in Germany Negotiate Trust in Their Transnational News Environments. The International Journal of Press/Politics. Advance online publication. https://doi.org/10.1177/19401612241257872

2023

• Glazunova, S. & Ryzhova, A. & Bruns, A. & Montaña-Niño, S. X. & Beseler, A. & Dehghan, E. (2023). A platform policy implementation audit of actions against Russia’s state-controlled media. Internet Policy Review, 12(2). https://doi.org/10.14763/2023.2.1711
• Kravets, D., Ryzhova, A., Toepfl, F., & Beseler, A. (2023). Different platforms, different plots? The Kremlin-controlled search engine Yandex as a resource for Russia’s informational influence in Belarus during the COVID-19 pandemic. Journalism. Advanced Online Publication. https://doi.org/10.1177/14648849231157845
• Toepfl, F., Ryzhova, A., Kravets, D., & Beseler, A. (2023). Googling in Russian Abroad: How Kremlin-Affiliated Websites Contribute to the Visibility of COVID-19 Conspiracy Theories in Search Results. International Journal Of Communication, 17, 1126–1146.
  https://ijoc.org/index.php/ijoc/article/view/19423/4042

2022

• Ryzhova, A. (2022). Motivated by political beliefs, not only by language: How Russian speakers in Germany compose their transnational news repertoires. Journalism. Advance online publication.
  https://doi.org/10.1177/14648849221130557
• Toepfl, F., Kravets, D., Ryzhova, A., & Beseler, A. (2023). Who are the plotters behind the pandemic? Comparing Covid-19 conspiracy theories in Google search results across five key target countries of Russia’s foreign communication. Information, Communication & Society, 26(10), 2033-2051. https://doi.org/10.1080/1369118X.2022.2065213

2026

• Ryzhova, A. (2026). Regulating artificial intelligence in authoritarian contexts: Russia’s “ethics” approach to becoming an AI power. ECREA 2026, Brno, Czech Republic, September 8–11.
• Ryzhova, A. (2026). Two faces of Russia’s AI strategy: Ethical norm entrepreneurship abroad and technological control at home [Presentation at a closed seminar]. New Technologies as a Double-Edged Sword: Malign Information Influence and Democratic Resilience, Swedish Defence University, Stockholm, Sweden, August 26–27.
• Ryzhova, A. 2026. “How Russian Propaganda Is Feeding into AI Responses.” Public talk with Wolfgang Bücherl, Head of the European Commission’s Representation in Munich. Event details
• Ryzhova, A. (2026). Russia’s digital propaganda in the world of AI post-2022: Regulations and tools. British Association for Slavonic and East European Studies (BASEES) Annual Conference 2026, Birmingham, United Kingdom, April 10–12.
• Ryzhova, A., Piwoni, E., & Töpfl, F. (2026). War, feelings of belonging, and news diets: How Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine did (not) change the news repertoires of Russian speakers in Germany. Annual Conference of the International Communication Association (ICA), Cape Town, South Africa, June 4-8.

2025

• Ryzhova, A. 2025. “Between Structural Change and Ideological Radicalization: How Russia’s Full-Scale War on Ukraine Changed the News Repertoires of Russian Speakers in Germany.” Presentation at the International Council for Central and East European Studies (ICCEES) XI World Congress, London, United Kingdom, 21–25 July.

2024

• Ryzhova, A., & Töpfl, F. (2024). “Being a journalist? It’s very dangerous both there and here”: How Russian-speaking migrants deploy authoritarian folk theories about news media literacy to make sense of democratic news environments. ECREA 2024, Ljubljana, Slovenia, September 24–27.

2023

• Glazunova, S., Ryzhova, A., Bruns, A., Montaña-Niño, S., Beseler, A., & Dehghan, E. (2023). Deplatforming RT and Sputnik during the Russia-Ukraine war: A policy implementation audit in 10 countries. Annual Conference of the International Communication Association (ICA), Toronto, Canada, May 25–29.

2022

• Töpfl, F., Ryzhova, A., Kravets, D., & Beseler, A. B. (2022). How misinformation as accessed through Google varies with input language and geolocation: A comparison of COVID-19 conspiracy narratives retrieved from five countries in response to Russian- versus English-language queries. Annual Conference of the International Communication Association (ICA), Paris, France, May 26–[date to verify].

2021

• Ryzhova, A. (2021). Transnational news repertoires in times of conflict: How Russian speakers in Germany navigate news media landscapes. Annual Aleksanteri Conference, Helsinki, Finland, October 27–29.
• Ryzhova, A. (2021). Strategic narratives and public diplomacy in the Russian news media portrayal of Sweden: The case of Russia Today. Fifth Annual Tartu Conference on Russian and East European Studies, Tartu, Estonia, June 6–8.

2019

• Ryzhova, A. (2019). Fostering new Russian identity: How “Eurasianism” influenced the rhetoric and policy of Vladimir Putin during the third presidential term (2012–2018). Fourth Annual Tartu Conference on Russian and East European Studies, Tartu, Estonia, June 10–11.