Authoritarian media abroad: the case of Russia and RT News

This chapter explores how state funded news abroad functions as part of a state's broader information strategy, using the Russian news channel RT as a case study. Information is the foundation on which democracies are built. Citizens' ability to decide who should govern them, which laws to support and oppose, when to resist changes and when to embrace them, is only as good as the available information. That is why the free press and freedom of information are so central to democratic governance. For this reason, deceptive information practices on the part of adversarial states pose a threat to the security of democracy and to democratic institutions. This chapter situates Russian state funded media abroad historically, before exploring how it has been adapted to the digital age, considering what we know about what RT does, how it attempts to influence the information environment, and whether it is effective or not.