The News Media Organizations RT and Sputnik and Their Audiences

Abstract

This chapter introduces the two Russian state-affiliated news media organizations, Sputnik and RT, and provides background on their development. It also discusses what is known about their journalistic culture with regard to organization and journalistic style. Scholars have highlighted that although they are international news organizations producing and disseminating information and current affairs for a global audience, in a similar way to other news media outlets, there are significant differences between RT/Sputnik and news organizations such as BBC World or CNN International. These differences in journalistic ethos have a bearing on the storytelling techniques used, and these are therefore also analyzed in this chapter. Finally the chapter presents previous research findings on the audiences for RT and Sputnik, why people turn to these channels and how they perceive and engage with the news content. Having thus positioned RT and Sputnik as international news organizations and given an account of what is known about audience reception of their messaging, Chap. 3 focuses on how RT and Sputnik have used disinformation and targeted various states.