Mediatization and journalistic agency: Russian television coverage of the Skripal poisonings

Tolz, Vera; Hutchings, Stephen; Chatterje-Doody, Precious N; Crilley, Rhys

doi:10.1177/1464884920941967

Cited by 22 publications

(11 citation statements)

References 25 publications

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“…Yet, as Galeotti (2018) convincingly argues, there is “no single organizing principle, let alone controlling agency” that manipulates RT as an organization or dictates the agenda for the journalists who work for it. Just because RT positions itself at times as an alternative to, and an opponent of, “mainstream media,” this does not mean that it operates exclusively as “Putin’s puppet” or a simplistic propaganda agent for Russia’s neo-authoritarian regime (Chatterje-Doody and Tolz 2020; Dajani et al 2019; Galeotti 2018; Tolz et al 2020).…”

Section: Rt’s Operational Paradigms: Reviewing the Literaturementioning

confidence: 99%

Understanding RT’s Audiences: Exposure Not Endorsement for Twitter Followers of Russian State-Sponsored Media

Crilley

Gillespie

Vidgen

et al. 2020

The International Journal of Press/Politics

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The Russian state-funded international broadcaster RT (formerly Russia Today) has attracted much attention as a purveyor of Russian propaganda. To date, most studies of RT have focused on its broadcast, website, and social media content, with little research on its audiences. Through a data-driven application of network science and other computational methods, we address this gap to provide insight into the demographics and interests of RT’s Twitter followers, as well as how they engage with RT. Building upon recent studies of Russian state-sponsored media, we report three main results. First, we find that most of RT’s Twitter followers only very rarely engage with its content and tend to be exposed to RT’s content alongside other mainstream news channels. This indicates that RT is not a central part of their online news media environment. Second, using probabilistic computational methods, we show that followers of RT are slightly more likely to be older and male than average Twitter users, and they are far more likely to be bots. Third, we identify thirty-five distinct audience segments, which vary in terms of their nationality, languages, and interests. This audience segmentation reveals the considerable heterogeneity of RT’s Twitter followers. Accordingly, we conclude that generalizations about RT’s audience based on analyses of RT’s media content, or on vocal minorities among its wider audiences, are unhelpful and limit our understanding of RT and its appeal to international audiences.

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Section: Rt’s Operational Paradigms: Reviewing the Literaturementioning

confidence: 99%

Understanding RT’s Audiences: Exposure Not Endorsement for Twitter Followers of Russian State-Sponsored Media

Crilley

Gillespie

Vidgen

et al. 2020

The International Journal of Press/Politics

Self Cite

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

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“…The idiosyncrasy of China's media ecology, however, goes a long way towards countering the vulnerability of the strategic narratives that circulate within the country's social media platforms. As is also the case in other authoritarian regimes (Tolz et al 2020), the increasing mediatization of Chinese politics is indicative of the average netizen's growing capacity to evade governmental control (Zou 2021). Still, Chinese platforms remain relatively disconnected from the circuitry of the global public sphere.…”

Section: Strategic Narratives: Global Versus Domestic Ecologies Of At...mentioning

confidence: 92%

Unsettling Translation

Baker¹

2022

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This collection engages with translation and interpreting from a diverse but complementary range of perspectives, in dialogue with the seminal work of Theo Hermans. A foundational figure in the field, Hermans's scholarly engagement with translation spans several key areas, including history of translation, metaphor, norms, ethics, ideology, methodology, and the critical reconceptualization of the positioning of the translator and of translation itself as a social and hermeneutic practice. Those he has mentored or inspired through his lectures and pioneering publications over the years are now household names in the field, with many represented in this volume. They come together here both to critically re-examine translation as a social, political and conceptual site of negotiation and to celebrate his contributions to the field.The volume opens with an extended introduction and personal tribute by the editor, which situates Hermans's work within the broader development of critical thinking about translation from the 1970s onward. This is followed by five parts, each addressing a theme that has been broadly taken up by Theo Hermans in his own work: translational epistemologies; historicizing translation; performing translation; centres and peripheries; and digital encounters.This is important reading for translation scholars, researchers and advanced students on courses covering key trends and theories in translation studies, and those engaging with the history of the discipline.The rather smooth, unruffled picture of translation that I have just painted has an 'other' to it, a more unsettling but also a much more interesting and intriguing side. The smooth, unruffled picture may be part of the conventional perception and self-presentation of translation, but it papers over the cracks. I want to try and poke my finger into at least some of these cracks. And the reason for doing so lies in the recognition that translation, for all its presumed secondariness, derives its force from the fact that it is still our only answer to, and our only escape from, Babel.

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“…Instead, informational posts were an important component of the news broadcasters' coverage of the BLM protests. Indeed, journalists employed by state-backed media still need to "keep narratives believable" to maintain credibility with their audiences (Tolz et al 2020).…”

Section: Building News Credibility: Propaganda and News Coverage Of C...mentioning

confidence: 99%

Playing Both Sides: Russian State-Backed Media Coverage of the #BlackLivesMatter Movement

Bradshaw

DiResta

Miller

2022

The International Journal of Press/Politics

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Russian influence operations on social media have received significant attention following the 2016 US presidential elections. Here, scholarship has largely focused on the covert strategies of the Russia-based Internet Research Agency and the overt strategies of Russia's largest international broadcaster RT (Russia Today). But since 2017, a number of new news media providers linked to the Russian state have emerged, and less research has focused on these channels and how they may support contemporary influence operations. We conduct a qualitative content analysis of 2,014 Facebook posts about the #BlackLivesMatter (BLM) protests in the United States over the summer of 2020 to comparatively examine the overt propaganda strategies of six Russian-linked news organizations—RT, Ruptly, Soapbox, In The NOW, Sputnik, and Redfish. We found that RT and Sputnik diverged in their framing of the BLM movement from the newer media properties. RT and Sputnik primarily produced negative coverage of the BLM movement, painting protestors as violent, or discussed the hypocrisy of racial justice in America. In contrast, newer media properties like In The NOW, Soapbox, and Redfish supported the BLM movement with clickbait-style videos highlighting racism in America. Video footage bearing the Ruptly brandmark appears in both traditional and new media properties, to illustrate, in real time, civil unrest across the US. By focusing on overt propaganda from the broad array of Russian-affiliated media, our data allows us to further understand the “full spectrum” and “counter-hegemonic” strategies at play in contemporary information operations.

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Mediatization and journalistic agency: Russian television coverage of the Skripal poisonings

Cited by 22 publications

References 25 publications

Understanding RT’s Audiences: Exposure Not Endorsement for Twitter Followers of Russian State-Sponsored Media

Understanding RT’s Audiences: Exposure Not Endorsement for Twitter Followers of Russian State-Sponsored Media

Unsettling Translation

Playing Both Sides: Russian State-Backed Media Coverage of the #BlackLivesMatter Movement

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