Description
Sputnik, the younger and more inflammatory of Russia’s two international broadcasting outlets, was founded in 2014. Sputnik adopts a loosely libertarian editorial stance that allows it to project Western states and their institutions as corrupt and curtailing the choices and freedoms of individual citizens. The coronavirus pandemic has led to hitherto unprecedented legislation placing stringent restrictions on civil liberties as well as pressures on states to harness science and technology in developing tools to combat the virus. The paper will ask: how has Sputnik reacted and adapted to a protracted major international crisis? How has it attempted to mobilise emergent libertarian debates surrounding the role and jurisdiction of the state?
Examining Sputnik’s social media content, I will aim to evaluate the outlet’s success in garnering audience reaction from English and Russian speaking publics at two critical junctures of the pandemic: the introduction of strict lockdowns in Spring 2020 and the development and roll out of the Sputnik V vaccine. Underpinning my analysis will be the contradiction that although the pandemic offers Russia’s international broadcasting operation an opportunity to advance libertarian tropes, the Russian state is actually no less reliant on the public trust and compliance that are required to contain the virus than are its Western counterparts.
