Russian state propaganda outlets Russia Today (RT) and Sputnik are an important part of Russian foreign policy and key global sources of disinformation. Previous work has argued that they focus on exploiting social divisions among foreign audiences and worried that Russian propaganda may influence the broader media agenda. To date, though, there has been no comprehensive study of what RT and Sputnik actually cover, or any quantitative analysis of their influence on other coverage. We analyze 4.7 million English-language news articles from RT, Sputnik, and sixty-seven other news outlets linked to on Facebook from 2017 to 2021, articles that collectively generate 22.6 billion user interactions. Contrary to assumptions in previous studies, RT and Sputnik gave modest attention to US domestic politics, focusing instead on a set of geopolitical issues including the Middle East, armed conflicts, and international statecraft. Using a VAR model, we show that RT and Sputnik Granger-cause coverage on its high-priority issues across all categories of US media: center, left-wing, right-wing, and far-right. On domestic issues, RT and Sputnik follow center and far-right outlets instead of leading. Our study is an important corrective to earlier scholarship, which has overstated RT and Sputnik’s engagement with US domestic issues and blurred the specialized roles different Russian organizations play in malign influence operations.

中文翻译：

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俄罗斯的宣传是引领还是跟随？话题覆盖率、用户参与度以及 RT 和 Sputnik 的议程对美国媒体的影响


俄罗斯国家宣传媒体《今日俄罗斯》（RT）和人造卫星是俄罗斯外交政策的重要组成部分，也是全球虚假信息的主要来源。之前的研究认为，他们专注于利用外国受众之间的社会分歧，并担心俄罗斯的宣传可能会影响更广泛的媒体议程。但迄今为止，还没有对 RT 和 Sputnik 实际报道的内容进行全面研究，也没有对其对其他报道的影响进行定量分析。我们分析了 2017 年至 2021 年间来自 RT、Sputnik 以及 Facebook 上链接的其他 67 个新闻媒体的 470 万篇英文新闻文章，这些文章总共产生了 226 亿次用户互动。与之前研究中的假设相反，RT 和 Sputnik 对美国国内政治给予了适度关注，转而关注中东、武装冲突和国际治国之道等一系列地缘政治问题。使用 VAR 模型，我们显示 RT 和 Sputnik Granger 导致美国所有类别媒体（中间派、左翼、右翼和极右翼）对其高优先级问题进行报道。在国内问题上，RT 和 Sputnik 追随中间派和极右翼媒体，而不是领先。我们的研究是对早期学术的重要纠正，早期学术夸大了 RT 和人造卫星对美国国内问题的参与，并模糊了不同俄罗斯组织在恶意影响行动中所扮演的专门角色。