The media blogger analyses the results of a recent Nielsen study that showed RT leading most other international broadcasters in key US metropolitan areas in viewership.
“Why this apparent success for RT? (Comparative success: the actual audience size is probably very small.) There might be parallels here to CNN versus Fox and MSNBC. RT's competitors are merely news channels, whereas RT itself is edgier, appealing to a coalition of groups with motivations to view like-minded content.”
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Former US diplomat to Eastern Europe theorizes on the success of “Kremlin propaganda” and the motivations of those behind it.
“I would suspect that many of the quite clever and sophisticated RT editors (propagandists) are the cosmopolitan, multilingual, cynical sons and daughters of the now dying Red Cold War Russian upper bourgeoisie whose family privileges under the communist regime allowed them and their offsprings to travel/live abroad in style (by Soviet standards). These jeunesse dorée westernized Russian RT propagandists are, doubtless with an ironic smile on their perfumed faces, turning our putative USA belief in free speech "against" us, by suggesting all along that opinions expressed by Americans themselves on RT are mostly ignored by US mainstream media.”
“But if the RT propaganda is at times somewhat more interesting (or at least less unbearable) than the ad-filled USA-all-the-way marketing by the robot-like "anchor-persons" of the US mainstream TV corporate media … or the two dreadful pundits with their so-called "analysis" on "public" Tee-Vee, why not "watch" it, the RT propaganda, right there on RT itself?”
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Gary Silverman on RT’s award-winning Occupy W@ll Street application for Facebook.
“…I was fascinated by RT’s description of its game. The app enables people to leave comments and “occupy” property on a virtual map of New York’s financial district. This way they can “take a stand” or “chat with others across the globe, share their Facebook profiles, invite friends, read news and join the Occupy community from the comfort of their homes”.”
“…what struck me in this case is that the survival skills honed under communist rule now have capitalist uses – in this instance, involving the development of a Facebook app that enables people sitting on couches to seize virtual property as a way of expressing their frustration with the way things are.”
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