RT’s appeal to British audiences on Facebook: Outsider in an untrustworthy media environment

The expansion of Russian international broadcaster RT (formerly Russia Today) has been problematised in recent years, with the outlet accused of spreading propaganda, untruths and populism, and seeking to disrupt Western regimes. Most research has attempted to understand RT’s appeal through top-down approaches that focus on its content, making assumptions about its actual reception. This paper interrogates such assumptions through interviews and online observations with 26 individuals who engaged with RT UK’s content on Facebook (the UK’s most popular social networking site and a significant source of RT.com’s traffic) around Brexit and other issues. I find that the outlet’s appeal rested on its perceived status as an outsider, predicated on the rejection of a perceived untrustworthy domestic news media environment. These findings confirm the effectiveness of RT’s self-positioning as counter-hegemonic and pariah, while shedding new light on the importance of its Russian origins to audiences. The situated empirical insights also highlight the way its image is co-created with audiences’ attitudes and with the broader media and political environment. This has significant implications for our understanding of how individuals navigate the online news media sphere in an age of hybridisation and mistrust, and the ability of international broadcasters to exploit disaffection at home.