On Russia Today and propaganda.

[DetlefK]

http://www.cracked.com/personal-experiences-2074-6-ways-youve-probably-read-russian-propaganda-today.html

Eugen Fedchenko is a professor of journalism living in Ukraine who also lived through the last couple decades of Soviet history on the frontier of the USSR.



6.

Russia Today was founded by the Kremlin... and is located in the same building as the state-run news agency RIA Novosti. (Only a fool would think that this would lead to some kind of journalistic bias.)
And "Sputnik" is an off-shot of "Russia Today".

Professor Fedchenko explained that Russia Today has a habit of flooding the consumer with irrelevant news, sprinkled with subconscious hints that the US is corrupt or incompetent.

Professor Fedchenko explained the reasoning behind Russia's next generation of propaganda: "Instead of ideology you use nonsense, and with all that noise people lose focus."



5.

Russia Today caters to any possible prejudice and conspiracy-theory, to lure in as many potential readers as possible with click-bait. (Reveal to the customer what he already knows to be true.)

And once you have RT in your newsfeed, you e.g. get articles with photoshopped satellite-images that show that an ukrainian figher-jet shot down MH17.



4.

Russia Today is not picky with "experts". A guy with a news-site that's little more than blog becomes "...as polish media reports..." or "...according to western media...".

And a 9/11-truther with a blog who worked for the Reagan administration that one year becomes a "Reagan official".



3.

Professor Fedchenko pointed out the rule-of-thumb of always expecting the opposite of what soviet propaganda tells you.

Russia presented a super-modern and outright frightening battle-tank earlier this year... but they can't afford to build it in large numbers because it's too expensive.

Russia is cranking out a super-cool twin-barrel assault-rifle. (You know what's better than a machine-gun? TWO MACHINE-GUNS!) Except the russian elite commando-unit Spetsnaz tested a similar model in the 1980s and didn't like it.

"Every time on Sputnik you can see stories about how Russia is not harmed by sanctions, they find experts to prove that. If you're not harmed by something I'm doing, why would you talk about that? So, again, we deal with opposites -- if they say sanctions are not important, sanctions are hugely important."



2.

We spoke with a refugee from Donetsk (the Ukrainian city that separated with Russian military aid) during our trip to Kiev. She backed up the professor, pointing out that people she knew in town found Russian talk shows very convincing when they painted a picture of what a paradise Novorussia would be if those damn Ukrainians would just get out of the way.



1.

Russian propaganda is using the same tropes as soviet propaganda:

- The enemy is killing children.

- "Another story was about slaves. So they said that every Ukrainian participating in occupying forces would be granted a piece of land and two slaves. ... They try to portray Ukraine as a fascist state, with its attitude towards Jews and LGBT ..."

- During their 2008 war with Georgia, modern Russian propagandists accused Georgians of accepting neo-Nazi volunteers. And right now Russian media is busy making the case that the Ukrainian army might look pretty sexy in jackboots.

Russia Today proved that there are Neo-Nazis in the ukrainian army right now... with a pic from 2005.

There are neo-Nazis in the American army. There are even neo-Nazis in the Russian-backed separatist forces fighting against Ukraine. There are neo-Nazis everywhere, is the point.
(Hell, after WWII, lots of Nazi-soldiers joined the French Foreign Legion. During the late 1940s and early 1950s, 60% of the unit consisted of Germans.)

[Dr Hobbitstein]

1. The Putinistas will be along soon enough to tell you how you're wrong. nt

[951-Riverside]

2. "Eugen Fedchenko is a professor of journalism living in Ukraine"

The type of propaganda coming from Russia Today and Ukraine Today is absolutely laughable and absurd. The same goes for Iran's PressTV.

I don't trust much coming out of any of these countries.