AlterPublics present results on RT and Sputnik in alternative news environments

This month, the AlterPublics team unveiled brand-new findings from a study on the dissemination of Russian-backed news content in German-, Danish-, and Swedish-speaking alternative news environments at the 8th Annual conference of the International Journal of Press/Politics at Loughborough University, UK.

Using a network approach, the study investigates how social media users have shared RT and Sputnik content across multiple social media platforms in the three years up to the Russian invasion of Ukraine. In German-language environments, RT and Sputnik have special traction in alternative news environments on fringe platforms like Telegram and VKontakte. In Denmark and Sweden, the dissemination of RT and Sputnik content is generally more limited but occurs primarily on mainstream social media platforms like Facebook and Twitter.

The paper also shows that RT and Sputnik are predominantly, but by no means exclusively shared in right-wing oriented environments and that users most frequently share RT and Sputnik content in connection with controversial domestic topics like migration or Covid rather than in the context of Russian foreign policy and culture.

The interest in analysing the spread of RT and Sputnik was sparked by the EU media ban of the two Russian state media in March 2022. The findings will also be published in Danish in an upcoming report.