TY - JOUR
T1 - The spread of the Kremlin’s narratives by a western news agency during the Ukraine crisis
AU - Watanabe, Kohei
PY - 2017/1/2
Y1 - 2017/1/2
N2 - The description of the Ukraine crisis as an ‘information war’ in recently published studies seems to suggest a belief that the Russian government’s propaganda in the crisis contributed to Russia’s swift annexation of Crimea. However, studies focusing on Russia’s state-controlled media fail to explain how Russian’s narrative spread beyond the ‘Slavic world’. This study, based on quantitative and qualitative analyses of news coverage by ITAR-TASS, Reuters, the Associated Press, and Agence France-Presse over two years, reveals that Russian’s narratives were internationally circulated in news stories published by a western news agency. Although this by no means suggests that the western news agency was complicit in Russia’s propaganda effort, these news stories were published on the most popular online news sites, such as Yahoo News and Huffington Post. These findings highlight the vulnerability of today’s global news gathering and distribution systems, and the rapid changes in relationships between states and corporations in the media and communications industry.
AB - The description of the Ukraine crisis as an ‘information war’ in recently published studies seems to suggest a belief that the Russian government’s propaganda in the crisis contributed to Russia’s swift annexation of Crimea. However, studies focusing on Russia’s state-controlled media fail to explain how Russian’s narrative spread beyond the ‘Slavic world’. This study, based on quantitative and qualitative analyses of news coverage by ITAR-TASS, Reuters, the Associated Press, and Agence France-Presse over two years, reveals that Russian’s narratives were internationally circulated in news stories published by a western news agency. Although this by no means suggests that the western news agency was complicit in Russia’s propaganda effort, these news stories were published on the most popular online news sites, such as Yahoo News and Huffington Post. These findings highlight the vulnerability of today’s global news gathering and distribution systems, and the rapid changes in relationships between states and corporations in the media and communications industry.
KW - globalisation
KW - news agencies
KW - news flow
KW - online news
KW - Propaganda
KW - Ukraine crisis
UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/record.url?scp=85011805323&partnerID=8YFLogxK
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U2 - 10.1080/13216597.2017.1287750
DO - 10.1080/13216597.2017.1287750
M3 - Article
AN - SCOPUS:85011805323
VL - 23
SP - 138
EP - 158
JO - Journal of International Communication
JF - Journal of International Communication
SN - 1321-6597
IS - 1
ER -