Reframing Russia for the Global Mediasphere: From Cold War to 'Information War'?

The projection of national identities and interests on the global stage is being radically reconfigured by the twin consequences of post-Cold War geopolitical dynamics and transformations in the global news media landscape. The arrival of new players like Russia Today (RT) is altering the international media ecology. RT is Russia's primary international broadcaster with a reputation for being a mouthpiece of Putin's regime but the reality is more complex. The mediatization of political conflicts, or the myriad ways in which media like RT not only represent but also intervene and shape conflicts, have significant consequences for peace and security. The proposed research is the first in-depth, comprehensive study of the role of RT in projecting Russia for international audiences. It will be carried out by a multi-disciplinary team of specialists in Russian culture, history, politics as well as experts in media, security and computational linguistics.
The contemporary Russian security-media nexus bears a complex relationship to the history of the Cold War and to Russia's imperial past but it is poorly researched. Contemporary work on RT has hitherto lacked detailed empirical analysis tied to a robust theoretical framework. It has failed to account for the complexities of current relationships between RT and its very diverse audiences. Understanding the significance of RT in the evolving East-West 'information war' is both urgent and necessary to improving international understanding, informed citizenship and finding diplomatic solutions to seemingly intractable conflicts.
This project illuminates the processes by which RT not only reconfigures publics and audiences, but also furnishes the very conditions for unprecedented modes of international mistrust, conflict and insecurity. In integrating historical, discourse analyses, audience and social media research in an innovative methodological framework, we test hypotheses drawn from our pilot research that challenge conventional thinking and presumptions about RT and really get to grips with RT's recalibration of Russia's public image for international audiences and its blurring of distinctions between public diplomacy and propaganda. We address the following core themes and questions:
1) Narration: how do RT's narratives of Russian nationhood, and its narrational strategies echo and transform those of the Soviet/imperial past?
2) Legitimation: how are state agendas legitimated?
3) Adaptation: how are domestic news narratives adapted for RT's international audiences?
4) Identities: how are 'grammars of identity' and othering represented in RT's outputs and with what implications for exacerbating an 'information war' and amplifying securitisation processes?
5) Engagement: how do audiences and users engage with RT's broadcast news and social media content?
We research the above processes through case studies of three kinds of 'media events': (1) pre-planned Russian media-state collaborations; (2) on-going political conflicts; (3) unexpected, disruptive security-related events.
Outputs include a co-authored monograph and reports for research users (Conference of International Broadcasting Audience Researchers (CIBAR), the US Broadcasting Board of Governors, the BBC World Service, CCNI, Al-Jazeera, France Medias Monde, Deutsche Welle, the UK's Foreign and Commonwealth Office, Chatham House and BBC Monitoring).
We will bring journalists, policy makers and academics into dialogue via a major conference and workshops, demonstrating the significance of Arts and Humanities research for studying the relationship between media, identity and international security.

There are two main groups of beneficiaries with whom we already have excellent contacts developed within the framework of earlier projects. First are international broadcasters (IBs), particularly the BBC WS, Deutsche Welle, CNN International, France Medias Monde and Al-Jazeera. Further related beneficiaries are the US Broadcasting Board of Governors (BBG), whose remit is to oversee the US's government-funded IBs, and the Conference of International Broadcasters' Audience Research Services (CIBAR), which facilitates the appropriate use of audience data in IB decision making. We will produce preliminary and final user reports for the IBs, BBG and CIBAR, offering them important insights into RT's editorial policies, deployment of social media platforms, other audience engagement strategies and modes of operation. The final report will be presented and discussed at a workshop. We will also give a presentation at CIBAR's annual convention.

The second group of beneficiaries are UK policy makers and policy analysts. In particular, we are targeting Chatham House, the Russian and East European Desk of the Foreign and Commonwealth Office and BBC Monitoring (BBC M). The on-going crisis in Ukraine and Russia's controversial actions in the Middle East underscore the increasing need for such bodies to develop a multi-faceted picture of the full complexity of Russia's motivations for its actions on the international stage, acknowledging not just their similarity to, but their profound difference from, earlier Soviet models of behaviour. We will disseminate a user report to, and give presentations at Chatham House, the FCO, and BBC M on Russia's uses of international broadcasting as a public diplomacy tool and the implications for international security of RT's audience mobilisation strategies. We will organise a workshop with Chatham House and BBC M on the ability of (semi-)authoritarian states to combine broadcasting, digital and social media resources to capture and maintain new audiences. Our long-standing relationship with BBC M will facilitate dissemination of our findings to the security community. Professor O'Loughlin, a member of our project Advisory Board, will draw our research to the attention of UK foreign policy makers through his advisory role on the House of Lords Select Committee on soft power.

Representatives of all of the above organisations will be invited to take part in a conference we will organise on international media and global conflicts. This will initiate a dialogue between academics, international broadcasters and policy makers and analysts.

We will work closely with our Universities' Press Offices to bring our project to the attention of key media outlets in the UK. We plan one public lecture and/or radio broadcast a year to reach a wider audience and will run a project blog and social media publicity campaign. We will also use Manchester's leadership of one of the AHRC's new 'Open World' Research consortia to ensure that relevant research user and postgraduate communities will benefit from our project findings and outputs.