IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/taf/rpsaxx/v35y2019i2p77-92.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Russia Today’s strategy and effectiveness on YouTube

Author

Listed:
  • Robert W. Orttung
  • Elizabeth Nelson

Abstract

Many countries now operate state-funded international broadcasters, communicating directly with foreign publics to promote a variety of foreign policy goals. RT (formerly known as Russia Today) is currently one of the most prominent broadcasters in a crowded field. What is RT’s strategy, the size of its audience, and the effectiveness of its broadcasts in implementing its strategy? To answer these questions, we explore a case study of RT’s YouTube programming utilizing a new dataset of 70,220 video titles spanning the 2 years from February 2015 through January 2017. RT’s three-prong strategy focuses attention on strategic groups outside the West, including Arabic, Russian, and Spanish speakers, circumvents local media in target countries to promote Kremlin aims, and spreads a positive image of Russian accomplishments, particularly in Syria, which it considers a foreign policy success. The data presented here show that RT’s strategy is only partially successful since it underperforms among Arabic speakers, its main target, while doing relatively better among Russian, global English, and Spanish audiences.

Suggested Citation

  • Robert W. Orttung & Elizabeth Nelson, 2019. "Russia Today’s strategy and effectiveness on YouTube," Post-Soviet Affairs, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 35(2), pages 77-92, March.
    • Handle: RePEc:taf:rpsaxx:v:35:y:2019:i:2:p:77-92
    DOI: 10.1080/1060586X.2018.1531650
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://hdl.handle.net/10.1080/1060586X.2018.1531650
    Download Restriction: Access to full text is restricted to subscribers.
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1080/1060586X.2018.1531650?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    As the access to this document is restricted, you may want to search for a different version of it.

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Precious N. Chatterje-Doody & Rhys Crilley, 2019. "Making Sense of Emotions and Affective Investments in War: RT and the Syrian Conflict on YouTube," Media and Communication, Cogitatio Press, vol. 7(3), pages 167-178.

    More about this item

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:taf:rpsaxx:v:35:y:2019:i:2:p:77-92. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    We have no bibliographic references for this item. You can help adding them by using this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Chris Longhurst (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.tandfonline.com/rpsa .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.