Description
As an international broadcaster RT (formerly Russia Today) does not normally cover events in Russia as a par of its international programme, instead focusing on the coverage of global news and local events in the countries where it broadcasts or runs a website in the countries’ languages (Europe, America, Middle East). However the positioning of Russia as a country can be observed in the coverage of other countries where Russia, Russian people and political actors participate in the narratives of international relations. This paper aims to discover what roles Russian actors play in these international news narratives, and how these roles correspond to the official Russian foreign policy agenda.
This interdisciplinary paper is employing journalism and media theory as well as theories in the spheres of sociology and international politics to explore the topic through both quantitative (content analysis) and qualitative (textual analysis and document analysis) methods. The paper is contributing to the existing lineup of studies focusing on identity in Russian public diplomacy (see Feklyunina 2008; Makinen 2016; Simons 2014, 2015; Saari 2014; Rawnsley 2015; Makinen 2016; Yablokov 2015) and international media (see Chatterje-Doody & Crilley 2019; Chatterje-Doody 2018; Pasitselska 2017; Horbyk 2015; Strukov 2014; Hutchings & Szostek 2015; Grincheva & Lu 2016) but is the first attempt at extensively analysing not only the Self as a group but the role that Russian media assign to Russia as an international relations actor in particular, this way arguing for wider inclusion and use of media and journalism theories in international studies.
This paper is a part of my PhD thesis at which I am now preparing to submit for examination at City, University of London.
