Nation branding in the post-broadcast era: the case of RT

The paper examines Russia’s international multinational broadcaster RT (formerly Russia Today), which was launched in 2005 with the direct support of the Russian government. RT promotes a distinct ‘counter-hegemonic’ brand of broadcasting. This paper goes beyond RT’s branding to explore the broadcaster’s nation branding of Russia. It considers the range of strategies employed by RT, placing these within RT’s change of mission – from ‘informing others about events and life in Russia’ to comprising those ‘who question more’. By analysing RT’s coverage of the Republic of Crimea in 2016, and using a framing approach, the paper explores RT’s branding of Russia and the online audience’s engagement with this within the contemporary transnational, convergent media environment.