Russia Today: Putin's Weapon in the War of Images
Source: Der Spiegel
Russian President Vladimir Putin has created an anti-CNN for Western audiences with the international satellite news network Russia Today. With its recipe of smart propaganda, sex appeal and unlimited cash, it is outperforming its peers worldwide.
... Many in the West are also interested in seeing critical coverage of the self-proclaimed top world power. Russia Today is already more successful than all other foreign broadcast stations available in major US cities, such as San Francisco, Chicago and New York. In Washington, 13 times as many people watch the Russian program as those that tune into Deutsche Welle, Germany's public international broadcaster. Two million Britons watch the Kremlin channel regularly. Its online presence is also more successful than those of all its competitors. What's more, in June, Russia Today broke a YouTube record by being the first TV station to get a billion views of its videos.
... Since 2005, the Russian government has increased the channel's annual budget more than tenfold, from $30 million (€22.6 million) to over $300 million. Russia Today's budget covers the salaries of 2,500 employees and contractors worldwide, 100 in Washington alone. And the channel has no budget cuts to fear now that Putin has issued a decree forbidding his finance minister from taking any such steps.
... Russia Today sees itself as a champion of a global audience critical of the West. But it is also meant to amplify the self-doubts of Europeans and Americans who have been forced by recent events to wonder if their own countries -- like Russia and China -- are corrupt and in the grip of a pervasive intelligence apparatus.
Read more: http://www.spiegel.de/international/business/putin-fights-war-of-images-and-propaganda-with-russia-today-channel-a-916162.html
= new reply since forum marked as read
I found their defense of the "burn the gays' hearts" guy pretty interesting.
I've got the lot. I still miss Press which I had too.
I don't think you've even watched "RT" ...and if you have ..then give any links to anti-semetic comments that came from Any of the Show's Interviewers! If you find some "Guest" who mouthed off with comments like that...then don't Blame it on RT...when you know that both CNN & Faux News tend to find people who say offensive things about ANYONE. So if you find a Guest on RT spews some RW Stuff ....you Can't Blame it on Putin/RT or the Interviewer on RT. You blame it on the GUEST... they invited for the "Opposing View."
To see the DIFFERENCE is IMPORTANT.
I think, perhaps, you are wedded to the "Cold War" and can't get over that Times Have Changed for ALL Countries...since then. 
Give Links and I'll discuss.
I'd check it out...but you don't give enough info on it or why you posted about it.
What IS: "The Federation." Are you promoting a Movie or something.
Russia Listeni/ˈrʌʃə/ or /ˈrʊʃə/ (Russian: Россия, tr. Rossiya, IPA: [rɐˈsʲijə] ( listen)), also officially known as the Russian Federation[10] (Russian: Российская Федерация, tr. Rossiyskaya Federatsiya, IPA: [rɐˈsʲijskəjə fʲɪdʲɪˈrat͡sɨjə] ( listen)), is a country in northern Eurasia.[11] It is a federal semi-presidential republic, comprising 83 federal subjects.
http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/RIA_Novosti
RIA Novosti
FSUE Russian Agency of International Information «RIA Novosti»
(FSUE RAMI «RIA Novosti»)
RIA Novosti.png
Type Federal State Unitary Enterprise
Industry News media
Founded June 1941 (as Sovinformburo)
Headquarters Zubovsky Boulvard 4, Moscow, Russia
Key people Svetlana Mironyuk
Products Wire service
Owner(s) wholly owned by federal government (as unitary enterprise)
Subsidiaries Russia Today (TV network)
RIA Novosti (in Russian: РИА Новости
or sometimes shortly RIA (Russian: РИА is one of the largest news agencies in Russia.[1] RIA Novosti is headquartered in Moscow and operates about 80 bureaus internationally.
The agency publishes news and analysis of social-political, economic, scientific and financial subjects on the Internet and via e-mail in the main European languages, as well as in Persian, Japanese and Arabic.[2][dead link][3] It has a correspondent network in the Russian Federation, CIS and over 40 non-CIS countries.[2] Its clients include the presidential administration, Russian government, Federation Council, State Duma, leading ministries and government departments, administrations of Russian regions, representatives of Russian and foreign business communities, diplomatic missions, and public organizations.[2]
By Jacob Kastrenakes on July 16, 2013 07:11 pm Email @jake_k 127Comments
The United States government operates an entire network of broadcasters that distribute news in languages from English to Uzbek, but an "anti-propaganda" law has prevented their news from being aired domestically — until now. Earlier this month a legal change went into effect that many are worried will enable government-run organizations like Voice of America and Radio Free Europe — all arms of the Broadcasting Board of Governors (BBG) — to distribute their federally-funded radio and TV shows to the unsuspecting public. But even with the change, major advocacy groups don't think that the government is planning to flood the airwaves with propaganda.
"“There’s always a natural suspicion of government funded things.”"
The BBG's aim is to broadcast news into countries where state-run media makes it impossible to get objective journalism. Its staff has the freedom to write and publish what they please, and they're legally barred from attempting to sway public opinion in the United States. But as a BBG spokesperson told The Verge, “There’s always a natural suspicion of government funded things.”
That very suspicion helped to create the ban in the first place. During the Cold War, fear of Soviet infiltration led to Congress blocking domestic transmissions by the BBG. But even if the organization was used for propaganda in the past, advocacy group Free Press doesn't think that's the case any longer. "In its current incarnation, [the BBG] isn't really used explicitly in that way," Josh Stearns, the organization's journalism director, told The Verge. Instead, the BBG has worked to become a reputable organization for journalism. "I don't think we need to be any more skeptical of it than traditional commercial broadcast media," Stearns said.
But because American citizens largely haven't been able to see what the BBG reports, public oversight of the organization has been limited. "At least now we can access the content, listen for ourselves, and hold the government accountable," Stearns said. The American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) has also come out in favor of the change on the grounds that it should increase government transparency.
Until now, even requests made through the Freedom of Information Act couldn't be used to access news by the BBG. But despite the tight restrictions, the organization has actually been publishing its reports and broadcasts online for years now. "They could Google it," a BBG spokesperson said, "But we weren't legally allowed to send them a link!"
Now that the law has changed, the BBG still doesn't plan on broadcasting to the American public — at least not directly. Other organizations are welcome to play back reports that were made by the BBG, which could be a useful service for Americans who don't speak English but do speak one of the other 60 languages that the organization operates in.
The broadcast restrictions were done away with by an amendment to the Smith-Mundt Act, which was passed last year but didn't go into effect until July 2nd. In a piece commenting on the amendment, the ACLU suggested that more safeguards could be included to prevent propaganda — but it didn't really think that the BBG's news would become an issue: "The American public will be able to take government public diplomacy communications with a sufficient grain of salt."
WE ALL DO IT!
http://www.theverge.com/2013/7/16/4529184/us-ends-smith-mundt-propaganda-ban-bbg
AND THIS:
Propaganda, Public Diplomacy and the Smith-Mundt Act
John Brown
Adjunct Professor of Liberal Studies, Georgetown University
"I am not particularly concerned whether either gunpowder or propaganda have benefited or harmed mankind. I merely emphasize, at this point, that propaganda on an immense scale is here to stay. We Americans must become informed and adept at its use, defensively and offensively, or we may find ourselves as archaic as the belted knight who refused to take gunpowder seriously 500 years ago."
--State Department official George V. Allen, in "Propaganda: A Conscious Weapon of Diplomacy," The Department of State Bulletin, XXI, no. 546 (December 19, 1949), 941-943; cited at, footnote 11
Propaganda is hard to define. When viewed historically, however, it is an instrument of war used by a government against its enemy. Modern propaganda, targeted at mass audiences and using the latest media, was launched during World War I. In 1917, the U.S. government established its first propaganda agency, the Committee on Public Information, abolished in 1919. During the other twentieth-century global conflicts -- World War II and the Cold War -- the USG propaganda agencies were the Office of War Information (1942-1945) and the United States Information Agency (1953-1999). During the War on Terror, the Pentagon, the White House, and the State Department (Public Diplomacy and Public Affairs) handled propaganda, but no independent executive agency was created to deal with it, perhaps because our extremist Islamic enemy turned out to be not as global and threatening as many felt right after 9/11.
Propaganda is much cheaper than hard military power. It causes far fewer casualties than battlefield conflicts. Hence its benefits for a government at war. But how propaganda modifies hearts and minds in a state's interest is hard to measure. This is its main drawback from a military perspective, where the number of enemy dead is a "precise" way to quantify success.
There are three types of propaganda: white, grey and black, described thus by the propaganda scholar Kenneth Osgood:
White propaganda is correctly attributed to the sponsor and the source is truthfully identified. (The U.S. government's international broadcast service Voice of America, for example, broadcasts white propaganda.) Gray propaganda, on the other hand, is unattributed to the sponsor and conceals the real source of the propaganda. The objective of gray propaganda is to advance viewpoints that are in the interest of the originator but that would be more acceptable to target audiences than official statements. The reasoning is that avowedly propagandistic materials from a foreign government or identified propaganda agency might convince few, but the same ideas presented by seemingly neutral outlets would be more persuasive. Unattributed publications, such as articles in newspapers written by a disguised source, are staples of gray propaganda. Other tactics involve wide dissemination of ideas put forth by others--by foreign governments, by national and international media outlets, or by private groups, individuals, and institutions. Gray propaganda also includes material assistance provided to groups that put forth views deemed useful to the propagandist. Like its gray cousin, black propaganda also camouflages the sponsor's participation. But while gray propaganda is unattributed, black propaganda is falsely attributed. Black propaganda is subversive and provocative; it is usually designed to appear to have originated from a hostile source, in order to cause that source embarrassment, to damage its prestige, to undermine its credibility, or to get it to take actions that it might not otherwise. Black propaganda is usually prepared by secret agents or an intelligence service because it would be damaging to the originating government if it were discovered. It routinely employs underground newspapers, forged documents, planted gossip or rumors, jokes, slogans, and visual symbols.
Roughly speaking, public diplomacy (defined by the State Department as "engaging, informing, and influencing key international audiences"
is white propaganda, with some its programs in educational and cultural exchanges quite non-propagandistic, at least to some. Psyops (now known as MISO) carries out grey and black propaganda. Strategic communication contains elements of the three types ("colors" of propaganda. Propaganda can be overt or covert, in tone humane or bellicose, depending on circumstances and a government's interest.
Bottom line, however, is that propaganda is an instrument of war used by a government, primarily but not exclusively, against a present or possibly future enemy. It stands to reason, therefore, that, because propaganda is a state weapon directed at an adversary, actual or potential, citizens of a country should not be subjected to the propaganda of their government. If they are, their government is essentially waging war upon them. No wonder that after World War I an anti-propaganda tradition developed in the United States -- a country that prides itself on the right of its citizens to think as they wish.
As part of that anti-propaganda tradition, the Smith-Mundt Act, the 1948 legislation (amended several times) which prohibits the domestic dissemination of some USG-produced propaganda ("information"
directed to foreign audiences, is still relevant today. To be sure, the Act could use fine-tuning to deal with the internet age and a globalized world. Americans today can easily find Voice of America news on the Internet. So, some say, forget about a 60+-year Cold War relic!
Critics of the Act have noted that it was never meant to apply to the Department of Defense, which has its own rules prohibiting domestic psyops.
But this lack of coordinated control over propaganda activities by military and civilian agencies actually underscores a need, without censorship, to reinforce Smith-Mundt's most important point -- that a democratic government should not propagandize its own people, as was the case with totalitarian states like Nazi Germany and the Soviet Union, and as is true of today's mainland China.
MORE OF A READ AT:
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/john-brown/propaganda-public-diplomacy_b_1547214.html
don't EVEN attempt to "educate" me on propaganda, who does it, and the levels thereof.
Before HiPointDem was finally tombstoned she had taken to posting articles from RIA to support her "Russia isn't so bad" bullshit. I am pointing out that RIA IS THE PROPAGANDA ARM OF RT AND NOT UNBIASED JOURNALISM. Jesus fucking Christ.
Therefore, I need no education about propaganda, dear. Perhaps you need to simply read and let things sink in before you go hunt down lengthy articles that nobody needs. Unless your goal was, like Hannah/HighPointDem's, to say "see, Russia isn't so bad because we have VOA.".
