In August 2022, Detector Media conducted eight focus groups in Kyiv, Dnipro, Odesa, Vinnytsia and Lviv to find out how the audience perceives the Ukrainian media space after the full-scale invasion of Russia; changes in media product consumption; sensitivity and attitude to propaganda; and also to see possible transformations of the identity and values of Ukrainians. Eight respondents — women and men aged from twenty to fifty — participated in each focus group. The results of this study which were also presented during the Heart of Europe International TV Festival are not representative, but they allow us to outline trends.

In particular, we saw that Ukrainians paid attention to the joint telethon (although its evaluations are not unanimously positive), a significant increase in the number of quality content in the Ukrainian language, as well as a reduction in the presence of Russian-language media and pro-Russian narratives. At the beginning of the Great War, people almost completely abandoned entertainment content, but later partially returned to it. There are also tendencies to abandon Russian content, and among young people there is an interest in the history and culture of Ukraine. Interviewees do not consider propaganda to be an exclusively negative phenomenon, but see it as an integral part of the information war; pro-Ukrainian propaganda is called a justified and necessary means of mobilizing society. Among the changes in values is the growth of patriotic sentiments and a natural rejection of everything Russian.