Browsing by Author "Rossi, Paula"

RT (formerly Russia Today) is a Russian state-owned international news broadcaster. It is considered to be one of the Russian government’s key means through which mis- or disinformation can be spread. Russia has been accused of spreading disinformation and causing political polarisation through ‘troll factories’ on social media and state-owned, internationally targeted media outlets such as RT. The presumption that can be found in the existing literature on RT is that it only functions as the Kremlin’s propaganda mouthpiece. Such a stance is problematic; hence, this research instead analyses RT’s coverage of the 2019 European Parliamentary elections as an independent actor separate from the Kremlin. Due to its transnational nature, the European Parliamentary elections in May 2019 were seen as a potential target of Russian interest and hence chosen as the context of this research. Instead of seeking for signs of Russian intervention, the focus is on how RT constructs the notion of a collapsing EU establishment. The materials included in this research consist of 94 articles derived from RT’s English language website. As the research deals with text and meaning-making, discourse theory forms its theoretical framework, while the method of analysis is discourse-theoretical analysis (DTA). DTA employs the key concepts of discourse theory to guide the analysis. In this context, the main concepts are hegemony and antagonism. Hegemony refers to a discourse that holds power and is able to influence social order. A hegemony always implies an antagonism, which is the hegemony’s ultimate ‘other’ that struggles to overturn the hegemonic discourse in order to shift power relations. The analysis shows that in this context, hegemony refers to the EU establishment and ‘mainstream’ media, while antagonism refers to the right-wing anti-establishment and alternative media. The EU establishment and mainstream media are framed as hostile in the articles, as they accuse the anti-establishment having connections to Russia, and RT in particular of being the Kremlin’s messenger. The articles provide counter-evidence of the allegations, thereby discrediting the establishment and mainstream media. The electoral success of the anti-establishment parties is framed as ending the centuries-long hegemony of the EU establishment. By framing the EU establishment and mainstream media in such a manner, the anti-establishment and alternative media are mirrored in a more positive light, representing the true will of the people and acting as the bearers of ‘truth’. These can be seen as increasing the credibility of the anti-establishment and RT in the eyes of the reader.