Sputnik (news agency)

Sputnik
TypeState media[1]
Country
Russia
AvailabilityWorldwide
OwnerRossiya Segodnya
(owned and operated by the Russian government)
Launch date
29 October 1929; 95 years ago (1929-10-29) (Radio Moscow)
22 December 1993; 30 years ago (1993-12-22) (Voice of Russia)
10 November 2014; 9 years ago (2014-11-10) (Sputnik)
Official website
sputnikglobe.com Edit this at Wikidata
Language23 languages[a]

Sputnik (Russian pronunciation: [ˈsputnʲɪk]; formerly Voice of Russia and RIA Novosti, naming derived from Russian спутник, "satellite") is a Russian state-owned[1] news agency and radio broadcast service. It was established by the Russian government-owned news agency Rossiya Segodnya on 10 November 2014.[2][3] With headquarters in Moscow, Sputnik maintains regional editorial offices in Washington, D.C., Cairo, Beijing, Paris, Berlin, Madrid, Montevideo and Rio de Janeiro.[4] Sputnik describes itself as being focused on global politics and economics and aims for an international audience.[5]

Sputnik is frequently described by academics and journalists as a Russian propaganda outlet.[15] In 2016, Neil MacFarquhar of The New York Times wrote: "The fundamental purpose of dezinformatsiya, or Russian disinformation, experts said, is to undermine the official version of events—even the very idea that there is a true version of events—and foster a kind of policy paralysis." The Russian government rejects the validity of such assertions.[16] In early 2019, Facebook removed hundreds of pages on its social media platform passing as independent news sites but were actually under the control of Sputnik employees.[17]

Sputnik operates news websites, featuring reporting and commentary, in 31 languages including English, Spanish, Polish and Serbian.[18] The websites house over 800 hours of radio broadcasting material each day, and its newswire service runs a 24/7 service.[19][20]

Sputnik was banned in the European Union in February 2022 (along with RT) following the Russian invasion of Ukraine.[21] Technology companies and social media services responded to the invasion by removing Sputnik from their platforms, while many versions such as the French, the German and the Greek ones have closed their operation.

  1. ^ a b Romanova, Tatiana; David, Maxine (25 July 2021). The Routledge Handbook of EU-Russia Relations: Structures, Actors, Issues. Routledge. ISBN 978-1-351-00624-8. Archived from the original on 7 April 2023. Retrieved 1 March 2022 – via Google Books. Because of the centralisation of statue authority and greater state influence over the media in Russia as compared to the EU, it is relatively easy for Moscow to project a coherent and unified interpretation of events. For Russia, an important vehicle is the state-owned Sputnik and associated RIA Novosti media and news outlets, as well as the RT news and internet channel, which, besides the Russian version, is broadcast in English, French, German, Spanish and Arabic.
  2. ^ Missiroli, Antonio; Andersson, Jan Joel; Gaub, Florence; Popescu, Nicu; Wilkins, John-Joseph (2016). "Strategic Communications from the East". Strategic Communications: 7–24. Archived from the original on 21 November 2022. Retrieved 15 May 2020.
  3. ^ Pizzi, Michael (9 December 2013). "Putin dissolves RIA Novosti news agency". Al Jazeera America. Archived from the original on 18 October 2017. Retrieved 14 December 2019.
  4. ^ "Quiénes somos" [Who are we] (in Spanish). Sputnik Mundo. 15 February 2021. Archived from the original on 20 January 2022. Retrieved 20 January 2022.
  5. ^ "About Us". Sputnik News. Archived from the original on 20 July 2019. Retrieved 15 May 2020.
  6. ^ Benkler, Yochai; Faris, Rob; Roberts, Hal (October 2018). "Epistemic Crisis". Network Propaganda: Manipulation, Disinformation and Radicalization in American Politics. Oxford University Press. p. 358. doi:10.1093/oso/9780190923624.001.0001. ISBN 978-0-19-092362-4. OCLC 1045162158. Archived from the original on 26 January 2021. Retrieved 21 March 2021. The emphasis on disorientation appears in the literature on modern Russian propaganda, both in inward-focused applications and in its international propaganda outlets, Sputnik and RT (formerly, Russia Today). Here, the purpose is not to convince the audience of any particular truth but instead to make it impossible for people in the society subject to the propagandist's intervention to tell truth from non-truth.
  7. ^ Karlsen, Geir Hågen (5 August 2016). "Tools of Russian Influence: Information and Propaganda". In Matláry, Janne Haaland; Heier, Tormod (eds.). Ukraine and Beyond. Palgrave Macmillan. p. 199. doi:10.1007/978-3-319-32530-9_9. ISBN 978-3-319-32530-9. Archived from the original on 7 April 2023. Retrieved 28 February 2022 – via Google Books. The propaganda apparatus proper consists of four means: media, social media, political communication and diplomacy, and covert active measures, all tied together in a coordinated manner. The main international media channel is the RT broadcaster and website, formerly known as Russia Today. It is complemented by Sputnik radio and website, news and video agencies, and the Russia Beyond the Headlines news supplement, making up a news conglomerate operating in almost 40 languages.
  8. ^ Ižak, Štefan (January 2019). "(Ab)using the topic of migration by pro-Kremlin propaganda: Case study of Slovakia" (PDF). Journal of Comparative Politics. 12 (1). University of Economics in Bratislava / University of Ljubljana / Alma Mater Europaea: 58. ISSN 1338-1385. Archived (PDF) from the original on 1 March 2022. Retrieved 28 February 2022. Almost all important media in Russia are state controlled and used to feed Russian audience with Kremlin propaganda. For international propaganda Kremlin uses agencies like RT and Sputnik. Both are available in many language variations and in many countries (Hansen 2017). Aim of this propaganda is to exploit weak spots and controversial topics (in our case migration to the EU) and use them to harm integrity of the West (Pomerantsev and Weiss 2014).
  9. ^ Golovchenko, Yevgeniy (11 December 2020). "Measuring the scope of pro-Kremlin disinformation on Twitter". Humanities and Social Sciences Communications. 7 (1). Springer Nature: 1–11. doi:10.1057/s41599-020-00659-9. ISSN 2662-9992. When it comes to overt reach, the Russian government openly funds English-speaking outlets, such as Sputnik News and RT. These outlets serve as a frequent source of pro-Kremlin disinformation both according to scholars, fact-checkers and Western authorities (BBC, 2019; Elliot, 2019; Thornton, 2015).
  10. ^ Fletcher, Richard; Cornia, Alessio; Graves, Lucas; Nielsen, Rasmus Kleis (1 January 2018). "Measuring the reach of "fake news" and online disinformation in Europe" (PDF). Australasian Policing. 10 (2). Archived (PDF) from the original on 25 February 2022. Retrieved 25 February 2022 – via Mediterraneo Cronaca. For comparative purposes, we also included two prominent Russian news sites which have featured in European policy discussions around disinformation, namely Russia Today (RT) and Sputnik. These Russian state-backed organisations are clearly different from sites that engage in for-profit fabrication of false news, but both independent fact-checkers and the EU's European External Action Service East Stratcom Task Force have identified multiple instances where these sites have published disinformation.
  11. ^ Groll, Elias (10 November 2014). "Kremlin's 'Sputnik' Newswire Is the BuzzFeed of Propaganda". Foreign Policy. Archived from the original on 28 January 2015. Retrieved 26 February 2020.
  12. ^ Nimmo, Ben (January 2016). "Sputnik. Propaganda in a New Orbit: Information Warfare Initiative Paper No. 2". Center for European Policy Analysis (CEPA). Archived from the original on 6 March 2019. Retrieved 14 December 2019.
  13. ^ "Report: Russia spread fake news and disinformation in Sweden". Sveriges Radio. Radio Sweden. 9 January 2017. Archived from the original on 12 November 2020. Retrieved 16 August 2022.
  14. ^ "RT a Sputniku nebyla povolena účast na konferenci o svobodě médií" [RT and Sputnik were not allowed to attend the conference on media freedom]. Centre Against Terrorism and Hybrid Threats (in Czech). Archived from the original on 28 February 2022. Retrieved 28 February 2022.
  15. ^ [6][7][8][9][10][11][12][13][14]
  16. ^ MacFarquhar, Neil (28 August 2016). "A Powerful Russian Weapon: The Spread of False Stories". The New York Times. Archived from the original on 18 June 2018. Retrieved 14 December 2019.
  17. ^ O'Sullivan, Donie (17 January 2019). "Facebook takes down anti-NATO pages linked to Russian news agency Sputnik". CNN Business. Archived from the original on 22 May 2020. Retrieved 25 February 2020.
  18. ^ Godzimirski, Jakub M.; Østevik, Malin. "How to understand and deal with Russian strategic communication measures?" (PDF). Norwegian Institute of International Affairs. S2CID 169624599. Archived from the original (PDF) on 25 February 2020.
  19. ^ "Russian news agency Sputnik sets up Scottish studio". BBC News. 10 August 2016. Archived from the original on 20 October 2019. Retrieved 14 December 2019.
  20. ^ Hilburn, Matthew (10 November 2014). "Russia's New World Broadcast Service is 'Sputnik'". Voice of America News. Archived from the original on 7 April 2019. Retrieved 14 December 2019.
  21. ^ Cite error: The named reference Politico2022 was invoked but never defined (see the help page).


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