Media workshop
Russia Today banned from broadcasting: a sanction like no other
Audio 31:31
"It was perhaps the last newspaper of RT France", said this presenter of the Russian channel, March 2, 2022. © Screen capture RT France
By: Steven Jambot Follow |
Yann Bourdelas
4 mins
Broadcasting of Russian media RT and Sputnik has been suspended in the EU since March 2, following Russia's invasion of Ukraine.
The media workshop
receives Maxime Audinet, teacher-researcher, specialist in Russian media
soft power
, to discuss this decision and its consequences.
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Maxime Audinet
teaches in the master's degree in Russian and post-Soviet studies at the University of Paris-Nanterre.
He is also a researcher at the Institute for Strategic Research of the Military School (Irsem).
In October 2021, he published
Russia Today (RT)
: A Media of Influence in the Service of the Russian State
, with INA Éditions.
In
The Media Workshop
, he returns to the
suspension of RT and Spunik
in all countries of the European Union.
"
RT Sputnik have been sanctioned (...) for weakening Russia's information capacities in wartime
", explains Maxime Audinet who recalls that the Court of Justice of the EU was seized by RT to have this suspension canceled.
These cuts are "effective
“, he said: “It is the most extreme shock that RT and Sputnik have known since their creation.
»
On February 24,
the day of the Russian invasion of Ukraine
, the various channels of the RT network had varying editorial lines.
The RT channel in English had a line “
much more offensive, much more propagandist and in a direct way, that is to say that the journalists themselves, the presenters, will relay this speech, not talk about invasion (. ..) the whole discourse, for example on denazification, on the extrapolation of the presence of neo-Nazi or nationalist groups in Ukraine, is completely assumed
”.
On RT France, "
the only element of language that stands out is the expression" special military operation "which is the term used by Vladimir Putin in his speech
".
The “
alternative positioning
”
of RT
In this program, we also look back on the
beginnings of RT
, a channel first created to "propagate a positive image of Russia
".
But his ratings weren't taking off.
The conflict in South Ossetia in August 2008, between Russia and Georgia, was a turning point.
“
The Russian authorities consider that the way the conflict is presented in the international media space is completely biased, favorable to Georgia.
Suddenly, RT will change its role and really become this media which will compete with the major Western media, in particular the BBC, CNN, to bring another perspective.
This is the moment when RT lays the groundwork for this new positioning that we know today, which is this alternative positioning
, ”explains Maxime Audinet.
RT continued in this vein, aiming to “
denigrate Western democratic societies and display on screen their vulnerabilities, their divisions, their points of fracture and from this point of view, social movements, whatever their ideological side, (...) are good to take for deploy a fairly critical editorial line.
Which means that it is a media that has a very elastic line: you have a very left line in Latin America, very sovereigntist in Europe
”.
At the microphone of RFI, a French international public service media, which belongs to the France Médias Monde group of which France 24 is also a part, Maxime Audinet recalls what distinguishes RT from France 24. If these two televisions are financed by public funds, the construction of their respective editorial lines is different.
Thus, RT's news coverage is "
partial and selective
", explains the researcher, giving examples.
In Russia, the situation has worsened for the media
.
Russian journalists leave their country;
several Western media have decided to withdraw from the country, notably the New York Times.
“
We are observing a partition of Russian media and information spaces on one side and Western – European in particular – on the other
”, analyzes Maxime Audinet.
The BBC has decided to relaunch a short wave broadcast in Russian, RFI is considering doing the same: a "
Cold War atmosphere
".
Cut off in the EU, RT and Sputnik remain accessible in some 160 other countries which are all possible “
outlets
”.
“
We will probably see a restructuring, a redeployment of the network with the end of the Western subsidiaries
”, says Maxime Audinet, who recalls that RT America and RT UK will close.
He imagines that RT France will be relocated to Moscow and seek to project itself further into sub-Saharan Africa.
RT announced several weeks ago the upcoming opening of a regional office in Nairobi, Kenya, and domain names including RT and afrique or africa have been secured.
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