Seeing Red: Russian Propaganda and American News

The U.S. media has been tainted with Russian disinformation, but the more significant threat is how the Right has embraced the Russian model of the news media as a vehicle for propaganda. This could not have happened without Donald Trump, who has been aided and abetted by politicians and news outlets that favor persuasion over information. From his inauguration onwards, Trump has shown allegiance to the Kremlin propaganda playbook--he consistently denies reality, amplifies lies, vilifies the free media, and broadcasts disinformation.

Seeing Red breaks new ground in investigating the scope of Russian disinformation, arguing that key politicians and media outlets in the United States have facilitated the dissemination of Russian propaganda. From the 2020 elections to the Capitol Insurrection to the war in Ukraine, Sarah Oates and Gordon Neil Ramsay examine the penetration of key Kremlin strategic narratives that attempt to project Russian power, blame NATO for Russian aggression, and attack democracy via the U.S. news. Despite knowledge of the risk and resourceful work on tracking down Russian propaganda in the United States, the problem of foreign disinformation continues to this day. As Oates and Ramsay argue, this is in part due to exploitation of the American tradition of free speech and the open nature of the U.S. media system. Yet, the much more dangerous menace lies not in how foreign governments attempt to manipulate the media, but in how our media system has been compromised by domestic actors who follow an authoritarian playbook and promote anti-democratic narratives. When it is hard to tell the difference between what the Russians are saying about the Democrats and how Fox News is covering Joe Biden, it is time to realize that some American outlets have crossed the line from news to propaganda.

Sarah Oates is Associate Dean for Research and Professor at the Philip Merrill College of Journalism at the University of Maryland, College Park. As a political scientist, her work focuses on how the media can support or subvert democracy in places as diverse as Russia, the United States, and the United Kingdom. Dr. Oates has published many books, articles, chapters, and papers on various topics, including how the internet can challenge dictatorship, how election coverage varies in different countries, and how national media systems cover terrorism in distinctive ways. A former journalist, she has lived and taught in the United States, Scotland, and Russia.

Gordon Neil Ramsay is Associate Professor in the Faculty of Social Sciences at the University of Akureyri, Iceland. His work has covered political communication and disinformation, as well as media regulation and the effects of the decline of local journalism in democratic societies. He has worked in U.K. think tanks producing research on media legislation and regulation plurality, and co-founded the Centre for the Study of Media, Communication and Power at King’s College London. His recent publications have covered the media’s role in elections, the effects of market concentration and economic pressures on local news performance, and the increasing vulnerability of news media to targeted disinformation.