Abstract
As the Digital Age evolves, states are investing increasingly heavily in international news to compete for influence internationally. Among authoritarian states, Russia and China have invested particularly heavily, using state-subsidised outlets like RT and CGTN. Much of this is aimed at gaining relative influence versus liberal democracies in Europe and North America. While these efforts are gaining increasing attention, few comparative studies have examined how differently authoritarian states use international news to disseminate strategic narratives. Still fewer studies have examined how strategic narratives projected via state-sponsored news are received by international target audiences. This paper compares the online reception of RT and CGTN news coverage of the 2020 US presidential election on their websites, Twitter, Facebook and YouTube. It then considers the security implications of this for other liberal democracies, particularly in Europe. Examining both the content and the style of RT and CGTN's coverage, the paper shows how RT's coverage appears to be more emotionally engaging, and more noticeably tailored to different social media platforms. CGTN's more official, more dispassionate election coverage received far more muted engagement. Amid fears about the effectiveness of authoritarian state propaganda, the paper reveals that online audiences are extremely sensitive to content they perceive to be propaganda – with news content on both sites immediately rebutted by many commenters. This suggests that, rather than these news channels speaking to echo chambers of like-minded audiences, the online reception of their content is far more varied than sometimes appreciated. With ongoing concerns about subversion and electoral interference, the paper raises questions about how significant the impact of authoritarian strategic narratives really are.
Panel: Foreign Information Influence as an (Inter)National Security Threat