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ABSTRACT
Russian media outlets controlled by the Russian state have been known to disseminate dis/misinformation or fake news, especially about rivals such as Western countries. We investigate if this was the case for an incident in which the then-President of the United States Donald Trump declared his administration’s interest in purchasing Greenland. Using Factiva, we collected and reviewed all English-language articles published on this controversy by Russian news outlet Sputnik in August 2019 and found that dis/misinformation was not at play in this instance. However, we did observe that Sputnik deployed numerous strategies to aggravate tension and confrontation between the United States and Denmark and employed specific frames to take part in informational competition with Western states, including Arctic ones. This study is important in order to identify how strategies other than outright lying contribute to Russia’s foreign policy goals, and in turn to identify how best to counter these strategies.
Acknowledgment
The authors would like to thank the North American and Arctic Defence and Security Network and the MINDS program of the Department of National Defence of Canada for their financial support.
Disclosure statement
No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).
Notes
1 Bradshaw and Howard, “The Global Organization of Social Media,” 23.
2 Lackenbauer, Bouffard and Lajeunesse, “Russian Information Operations,” 162.
3 Cull et al., “Soviet Subversion, 17.”
4 Wardle and Derakhshan, “Thinking about ‘information disorder’”, 44.
5 Petratos, “Misinformation, disinformation,” 765.
6 Tandoc Jr., “Tools of Disinformation,” 37.
7 Brantly, “A Brief History,” 27.
8 Hutchings et al., “Staging the Sotchi’; Kragh and Åsberg, ‘Russia’s Strategy for Influence’; Cull et al., ‘Soviet Subversion’; Wagnsson, ‘The Paperboys of Russian Messaging”.
9 Cull et al., “Soviet Subversion”; Mejias and Vokuev, “Disinformation and the Media”.
10 Wagnsson, “The Paperboys of Russian Messaging,” 5.
11 Krever and Chernova, “Wagner Chief”.
12 Kragh and Åsberg, “Russia’s Strategy for Influence,” 788.
13 Elswah and Howard, “’Anything that causes chaos’”, 624.
14 Ibid, 630.
15 Ibid, 631.
16 Mejias and Vokuev, “Disinformation and the Media,” 1033.
17 Bjola and Pamment, “Digital Containment,” 135.
18 Ibid.
19 Dawson and Innes, “How Russia’s Internet,” 250.
20 Ibid, 251.
21 Ibid, 253.
22 Beskow and Carley, “Characterization and Comparison,” 77.
23 See for examples Elswah and Howard, “”Anything that causes chaos””; Cull et al., ‘Soviet Subversion’.
24 Boskow and Carley, “Characterization and Comparison,” 70.
25 Ibid, 73.
26 Ibid, 71.
27 Pomerantsev, “The Kremlin’s Information War,” 45.
28 Dawson and Innes, “How Russia’s Internet,” 253.
29 Elswah and Howard, “Anything that causes chaos”, 631.
30 Ibid, 625.
31 Ibid, 635.
32 Kragh and Åsberg, “Russia’s Strategy for Influence,” 784.
33 Pomerantsev, “The Kremlin’s Information War,” 46.
34 Ibid, 48.
35 Wagnsson, “The Paperboys of Russian Messaging,” 1–2.
36 Elswah and Howard, “”Anything that causes chaos””, 630.
37 Dawson and Innes, “How Russia’s Internet,” 254.
38 Ibid, 255.
39 Lackenbauer, Bouffard and Lajeunesse, “Russian Information Operations,” 168–172.
40 Salama et al., “President Trump Eyes”.
41 Sputnik News, “Under the Hammer”.
42 Sputnik News, “Green for Greenland”.
43 Sputnik News, “Danish Politicians Believe”.
44 Sputnik News, “Trump Blasts”.
45 Sputnik News, “Pompeo, Danish Foreign Minister”.
46 Sputnik News, “Trump says”.
47 Bhat and Chadha, “Anti-Media Populism,” 169–70.
48 Carter and Carter, “Questioning More,” 49–50.
49 Sputnik News, “Green for Greenland”.
50 Gagnon, “Organizing Notes”.
51 Sputnik News, “REVIEW”.
52 Sputnik News, “Green for Greenland”.
53 For example in Sputnik News, “Danish Politicians Scoff”.
54 For example in Sputnik News, “Under the Hammer”.
55 Deverell, Wagnsson and Olsson, “Destruct, Direct and Supress,” 15.
56 Ramsay and Robertshaw, “Weaponising News,” 55.
57 Potter, “Russia’s Strategy for Perception Management,” 412.
58 Pomerantsev, “The Kremlin’s Information War,” 46.
59 Dawson and Innes, “How Russia’s Internet,” 254.
60 Tuhina, “Two Years in EU Ban”.
61 Nae, “Russian strategic narratives,” 363.
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