Submission statement: This article examines Russia's effective use of propaganda as a strategic advantage in its conflict with the West. Beginning with the evolution of Russian media under Putin's leadership, it highlights how Kremlin-controlled outlets shape narratives critical of Western flaws while suppressing dissent.
The rise of social media further amplifies these efforts, exploiting its unregulated nature to spread misinformation widely. Despite Western awareness, challenges persist due to language barriers and differing media regulations, leaving Western democracies struggling to mount a cohesive response that protects freedom of information while countering disinformation effectively.
Intro:
Russia has a battlefield advantage in one aspect of its declared war against the West: the propaganda war. For some reason, the West refuses to engage in the same tactics as Russia, granting the Kremlin a significant advantage in shaping the opinions of ordinary people.
Modern Russian propaganda began to take shape when President Putin started his second re-election campaign in the early 2000s. For example, we can look at the former Russian TV show "Kukly" ("Dolls"), which was very popular at the time.
During the parliamentary elections in 1999 and the presidential elections in 2000, NTV, the channel that hosted "Kukly," was critical of the Second Chechen War, Putin, and the Russian political system. The show did not shy away from criticizing the President, even portraying him as an evil gnome.
However, the Kremlin began to exert its power, and NTV was forced to shut down the show in 2002 due to pressure. For many, this is seen as the beginning of the political censorship that plagues Russia today.
While there was some semblance of freedom, it collapsed in 2011 during the protests against Putin. It can be speculated that these protests scared Putin more than any color revolution. There is one thing that Putin fear and that is to be dragged out of the Kremlin by an angry crowd that screams for his had. In 2011 it came close to that. 1
Since 2011, all moral rules went out the window (along with several dissidents) as Putin and his inner circle believed they were in a war, with Western powers nearly winning by organizing opposition against him. The war had begun.
While a military response would take time, a propaganda force could start immediately. The Russian TV channel Russia Today had already begun promoting Russian interests but had balanced this with maintaining its reputation as an internationally recognized news channel. This balance was soon abandoned entirely.2
Russian media maintain a facade of professionalism and transparency, yet in reality, they selectively highlight topics that reinforce the narrative of the West being deeply flawed. Supported by Kremlin funding, they operate without the need to seek sponsors or advertisers, free from the financial or ethical constraints that typically govern traditional media businesses.
However, the TV could not measure against the new platform that was social media.
THE WILD WEST:
In 2011, Facebook and later Twitter were still in their infancy, and no one could envision the impact they would have on the world. There were few laws and rules governing these platforms, as international lawmakers struggled to establish a legal framework for this new digital landscape.
Social media's impact changed everything regarding information distribution. Readers' attention spans were reduced to seconds, and news media had to adapt to capture those golden clicks. Headlines turned into clickbait, emotions became the norm, and every tweet was met with anonymous users saying "this is bad" while posting ragebait articles. No one knew better than the Russians how to exploit this fear.
Russia has a significant advantage when it comes to online propaganda. Only 4.79% 3of the population indicated English proficiency in the 2010 census, which coincides with the statistics on the number of Russians who regularly travel abroad. Additionally, with a different alphabet, they were largely immune to the propaganda they created.
While Russian troll farms churn out millions of tweets from bots, the West struggles to respond because it requires proficiency in Russian and access to a tightly controlled network. The West's own principles of freedom have been used against them.
THE CURRENT WAR
There is a reason why you see posts on Reddit about "cease-fire" in every discussion on Ukraine, and why there is a widespread PR campaign suggesting that Ukraine is losing the war and that no more weapons should be sent. This tactic of "doom and gloom" is well-known, often enabled by useful idiots or other actors motivated by clicks for financial gain.
It's an evolution of trolling. Trolls are the most direct, crudest, and cheapest method to spread disinformation in online debates, amplify a specific message, and drown out facts that could be unfavourable to the Kremlin. However, since the war began, many have realized that pro-Kremlin trolls are ineffective because of Europe's strong animosity towards Russia.4
So now they became pro-peace and anti-WWIII trolls, and they are influencing a lot of ordinary people into fear and being afraid.
The problem is that the West does not have any countermeasures to this and we do not prioritise it either.4
WHAT TO DO:
It's challenging to propose effective strategies for the West without potentially compromising core principles like freedom of speech and information. Some argue that integrating basic tools to recognize disinformation into educational curricula is essential, while others advocate for investing in quality journalism. However, journalism itself is under pressure from capitalism, where a well-researched, thoughtful article of 500 words may not attract as many clicks as a sensational headline with easily digestible outrage.
The reality is that Russia is leading the charge in this PR battle. While it's difficult to claim they are winning, given the widespread disdain and animosity towards the country, it's evident that the West lacks a cohesive and robust response.
Major news services adhering to neutrality principles find themselves at a disadvantage. They can freely critique and scrutinize countries like Ukraine, which have relatively open press environments. In contrast, they face severe constraints in Russia due to stringent media laws. This situation often forces them into silence, creating an imbalance in the media landscape.
Finding a balanced approach that protects fundamental freedoms while countering disinformation remains a complex and pressing challenge for Western democracies.
Sources:
(Sorry that sources collapsed, filter would not accept it as it was orginally was
Mikhail Zygar: All the Kremlin's men
https://www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-41991683
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2023/jun/07/europeans-see-russia-adversary-rival-double-since-2021#:~:text=The%20proportion%20of%20people%20holding,and%20just%2017%25%20in%20Bulgaria.5 https://www.atlanticcouncil.org/wp-content/uploads/2018/06/Improving_the_Western_Strategy.pdf
A war only one side fights, how Russia is leading the Propaganda war
byu/farligjakt ingeopolitics
10 Comments
I would argue the opposite.
USSR was good at propaganda, Russia is not.
In fact Russians are disdained outside their country. This not so for the other party involved.
What is happening in Europe and USA is a natural response to immigration and lowering of quality of life. Ignoring it and labeling it as a result of Russian propaganda is a mistake .
Just tackle the problems .
And as far as the disunity in Europe is concerned, make up your mind do you want to fight Russia or not.
Half the time you are fiddling about your rules and articles. From the very start West approach has been half assed.
Did you honestly think China is just gonna sit by and get surrounded after Russia loses.
American and European leaders are still reeling from flashbacks of USSR and it shows. They are ancient fossils and are senile.
So don’t call it propaganda when people notice.
For a person outside of Russia it definitely does not look like Russia is winning the propaganda war.
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Propaganda is mostly for internal consumption. You don’t recognize it in your own country because you’re used to it. You don’t recognize it, because you agree with it. You agree with it because it’s been working on you your entire life.
If you live in the country like the United States, it’s entirely possible you will never ever see actual Russian propaganda, and if you do it will be so isolated that it’s very easy to dismiss and highlight.
The idea that people in other countries are falling for Russian propaganda has always been a red herring. There are two sides to every issue. For the conflict in Ukraine if you take Russia’s side, it is automatically blamed on “being a victim of Russian propaganda”.
That entire line of thinking is meant to discredit the other side, with the implication that the only way somebody would disagree with your country’s narrative is because they were brainwashed or tricked. The opposite happens in Russia as well.
I’ve lived in the United States most of my life and I’ve never seen any actual Russian propaganda. I see lots of things *discredited* as Russian propaganda, because it’s an easy way to dismiss someone’s argument. But just because somebody in the US is anti-NATO doesn’t mean they’ve been tricked by the Russians into that position.
People support their own best interest. The reality of the situation is that every dollar that goes to funding contracts to fight wars overseas could be solving domestic issues (or not spent at all to help ease inflation).This has less to do with propaganda and more to do with people exercising their democratic rights to criticize things that do not work in their favor. Yes you could play the straw man of “fight him over there so we don’t have to fight him here” but considering the track record of the MIC, (Iraq/Afghanistan/syria/I could go on) that argument seems pretty hollow at this point
Russia only looks like its leading th propaganda war because they suck at it and you easily see it for what it is: propaganda.
The Powers really winning the propaganda war are so subtle you don’t see it’s actual propaganda.
The western hegemon does not engage the n propaganda inside its own sphere of influence. It controls narratives. Russia just got ahead of the US ability to do that with the switch to social media. The us is catching up tho.
The most Russian propaganda I seen as an American is people not knowing how NATO works and are just living in denial. And it’s mostly on Twitter lol
The thing about Russian propaganda that most people don’t understand is that most of it has nothing at all to do with Russia. The stuff that does have to do with Russia is what people can notice easily so it’s all they focus on, but it’s only the tip of the iceberg. Russia is behind a lot of the political division in the west. They do anything they can to make that worse. A lot of their stuff is wholly focused on the domestic political issues of the countries they are working in. They also have lots of different channels of dissemination. Media figures, politicians, actors, academic figures, influencers, religious leaders, they have many different people all disseminating the same stuff from different sources. Some of them are probably knowing intelligence assets for the Russian government for one reason or another, others may just be fed propaganda through targeted campaigns where they introduce spies to someone and just talk them up or they fill their social media feeds with posts designed to influence their thinking. The end result is a lot of people amplifying narratives that ultimately come from the Kremlin while having no idea that this is the case.
I think an important aspect of it is the “demoralization”. They are trying to paint a picture of the world as being broken and corrupt and ruled by conspiracies which ironically makes the society more susceptible to becoming corrupt and ruled by conspiracies. It is a self fulfilling prophecy. Corrupt countries lead by authoritarian strong men and an oligarchic political class of elites are countries that Russia can “deal” with. Have you noticed all the people on the internet on places like 4chan who seem to be completely out of touch with reality and living in an alternate universe? Well that didn’t just come out of nowhere. Much of it is attributable to our own domestic media which, on the right, has largely lost all scruples and operates with an intent to deceive people at worst and simply feed them whatever bullshit they’re asking for at best, but not all of it. Some of it comes down to the propaganda coming out of Russia. It is the exact same playbook that Putin used originally when he took power. Remember that Putin moved to take control over the media from the oligarchs earlier than he moved on the fossil fuel oligarchs. So even above the money needed to fund his government, he prioritized media control.
The media in Russia is sort of similar to how Fox news operates, except every news station is fox and they’re all controlled by Putin, and any variation in ideological flavor from station to station is actually just for entertainment purposes and ultimately they all send the message that Putin wants to send to people. Because the same message comes from many differing sources, people tend to believe it. They pay attention to the hot-button issues but ultimately these are not what the Kremlin cares about. The hot-button issues are just there to get people’s attention. They don’t affect anything important (from the Kremlin’s point of view). The important stuff is slipped in without people even noticing. The basic framework of thinking, assumptions about how the world works, all of this can be manipulated over time to control people and this is how Putin has gained control of his own country.
Now this model is being applied increasingly to the west. I think the important thing to realize is that Putin is looking to influence democracies by gaining control over their politics via the democratic process. They need allies to do this, and they have found them. They are influencing the domestic politics of democracies with the goal of promoting the candidates and parties that will be most ideologically aligned with them. There was a clear quid pro quo with the first presidential campaign of Donald Trump. He sought help from the Russians, he received help from the Russians (as did other members of the republican party) and he gave the Russians what they wanted by altering the party platform to be against Ukraine aid. This was the one and only change Trump requested for the entire platform. He literally just rolled over the exact same platform but the one thing he supposedly “cared” about was stopping Ukraine aid. You want me to believe he did that just because he’s super concerned about Ukraine? No, he did that because he knew the Russians were helping him and he needed to help them back.
The same dynamic is happening in Europe. Anti immigrant sentiment is being amplifed by the Russians both in the US and Europe and in both cases Russia is actively trying to make the problem worse by sending more migrants to these countries. Remember the “migrant caravan” that was a thing in the US presidential election? That was traced back to a Russian disinformation campaign where they were telling people all sorts of lies to entice them to go. They organized it on the ground with internet campaigns leading to real life migrant caravans forming which was then used by the media to attack the democrats. Similar stuff has happened in Europe with the Syrian situation. Russia has been purposefully flooding Europe with Muslim migrants and then flooding those countries with anti Muslim propaganda which they then use as a tool to gain support for the candidates that are friendly to them.
I think this current political moment can best be understood as an attempt by certain members of the far right in western democracies to try and “Russify” their countries. That is to say, to implement their system of oligarchic control and “guided democracy” with strongmen leaders who rule over the populous using propaganda. The NRA in the US was clearly coordinating their propaganda with Russia and there were Russian spies caught red handed in their organization. Trump attempted a coup, and now the Supreme court has started handing down nakedly political rulings that effectively legislate from the bench and have started to take away rights people once had.
This is really a much bigger issue than most people understand. Russia is looking to destroy western democracies, and far right politicians in those countries are gladly willing to help them do it if it allows them to steal even more wealth and power for themselves.
Collective West has almost complete media domination and it is all propaganda.