From Russia with Lols: Humour, RT, and the Legitimation of Russian Foreign Policy

ABSTRACT

The Russian state-funded international broadcaster RT is often accused of pedalling misinformation and claiming legitimacy for nefarious Russian activities. Whilst studies have so far analysed the content of RT's media reports, they have yet to interrogate how Russian legitimation claims are often expressed on RT through a blurring of news reporting and comedy. This paper addresses this gap and places humour at the centre of analysis, arguing that comedy and satire are fundamental to how RT claims legitimacy for Russian foreign policy. We begin by introducing theories of legitimation to studies of comedy in global politics, before then examining RT's social media outputs and audience responses to those. In doing so, we demonstrate that humour is central to how RT claims legitimacy for Russian foreign policy. From military intervention in Syria, to the poisoning of the Skripals in Salisbury, humour shapes how RT's legitimation claims are interpreted by their audiences.

KEYWORDS:

• Legitimation
• RT
• Russia
• comedy
• satire
• social media

Acknowledgements

We would like to thank the editors of the special issue on humour and world politics as well as the anonymous reviewers for their thoughtful and constructive comments on our work. We are also grateful to our colleagues on the “Reframing Russia” project at the University of Manchester and The Open University who encouraged and supported us during this research.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Additional information

Funding

This work was supported by Arts and Humanities Research Council: [Grant Number AH/P00508X/1].

Notes on contributors

Rhys Crilley

Dr Rhys Crilley is a Leverhulme Trust Early Career Researcher in the Department of Politics and International Relations at the University of Glasgow. His current research explores narratives of nuclear weapons, and he works on the intersections of popular culture, social media and global politics with a specific interest in war and legitimacy. Rhys has published over twenty journal articles in outlets such as International Studies Review, Journalism, International Affairs, and Millennium. He is currently working on writing his first monograph. He tweets at @rhyscrilley.

Precious N. Chatterje-Doody

Dr Precious N. Chatterje-Doody is a Lecturer in Politics and International Studies at Open University. Her multidisciplinary research interests concern the relationship between communication, identity, security and memory, particularly in relation to Russia. She has published articles in journals including Politics, Media and Communication, and European Journal of Cultural Studies. Her monographs, “The Russian identity riddle: Unwrapping Russia’s security policy,” and “RT and Conspiracy Theory” (with Dr Ilya Yablokov, Leeds University) will be published by Routledge in 2021. She tweets @PreciousChatD.