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Tweeting the Russian revolution: RT's #1917LIVE and social media re-enactments as public diplomacy.
- Source :
-
European Journal of Cultural Studies . Jun2020, Vol. 23 Issue 3, p354-373. 20p. - Publication Year :
- 2020
-
Abstract
- Throughout 2017, the Russian state broadcaster, RT (formerly Russia Today), commemorated the centenary of the 1917 revolution with a social media re-enactment. Centred on Twitter, the 1917LIVE project involved over 90 revolution-era characters tweeting in real time as if the 1917 revolution was happening live on social media. This article is based on an analysis of a sample of tweets by users who engaged with 1917LIVE, alongside focus group discussions with its followers. We argue that a cultural studies perspective can shed important light on the political significance of RT's social media re-enactment in ways that current studies of public diplomacy as a soft power resource often fail to do. It can advance soft power theory by offering a more nuanced, dynamic analysis of how state media mobilise, and how audiences engage with, social media re-enactments as commemorative events. We find that rather than promoting a unitary propagandistic narrative about Russia, 1917LIVE served instead to soften attitudes towards RT itself – encouraging audiences to view RT as an educator and entertainer as well as a news broadcaster – normalising its presence as a Russian public diplomacy resource in the international news media landscape. Our analysis of audience interactions with and interpretations of 1917LIVE affords insights into how the 1917 re-enactment worked as didactic entertainment eliciting affective identification with the characters of the revolution. Such public diplomacy projects contribute in the short term to a strengthening of the engagement required to create longer-term soft power effects. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]
- Subjects :
- *DIPLOMACY
*PRESS
*SOCIAL revolution
*FOCUS groups
*POWER resources
*SOCIAL media
Subjects
Details
- Language :
- English
- ISSN :
- 13675494
- Volume :
- 23
- Issue :
- 3
- Database :
- Academic Search Index
- Journal :
- European Journal of Cultural Studies
- Publication Type :
- Academic Journal
- Accession number :
- 143609827
- Full Text :
- https://doi.org/10.1177/1367549419871353