Russia intends to use viral online videos to convey their version of ”truth” to the world, said Russia Today chief Margarita Simonyan at a meeting of the Victory organizing committee chaired by Russian President Vladimir Putin in Kremlin. You can read Russian transcript of full meeting on the official webiste of Russian President.
”We would like to show some more modern ways to channel the message of our truth to the world than those we`ve been using. It is clear that we use many traditional ways: documentaries, whole cycles, reports and so on, but this only works for a certain part of the audience.A younger audience already has troubles perceiving such formats. For them, viral videos work better,” Simonyan said, showing the meeting a video clip about the Soviet contribution to the victory over Nazism.
”We made such a viral clip in different languages, we will launch it ahead of the Victory Day, and we expect a substantial effect from it. If someone wants to use this (maybe through the Foreign Ministry or other departments), we will gladly share this. This is just an example of educational viral videos for young people,” she said.
According to her, such short and easy videos continue to live their own lives once uploaded: people share them with each other, post them on Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, and these videos get a completely different audience than using the usual means for TV.
See also: Confession of former Kremlin’s troll published by The Moscow Times
Earlier, in November 201, the European Parliament adopted a resolution stressing propaganda pressure on the EU from Russia and Islamist terrorist groups had been growing.
Given that Russian propaganda seeks to distort the truth, incite fear, provoke doubt and divide the EU, MEPs suggested reinforcing the EU`s small ”strategic communication” task force and investing more in awareness raising, education, online and local media, investigative journalism and information literacy.
The resolution also suggested deepening EU and NATO cooperation on strategic communication, reinforcing the EU`s 9-strong strategic communication task force and providing more support to boost media resilience in EU neighborhood countries.
MEPs warned that the Kremlin has stepped up its propaganda against EU since annexing Crimea and waging hybrid war in Donbas.
They noted that ”the Russian government is employing a wide range of tools and instruments, such as think tanks […], multilingual TV stations (e.g. Russia Today), pseudo-news agencies and multimedia services (e.g. Sputnik) […], social media and internet trolls, to challenge democratic values, divide Europe, gather domestic support and create the perception of failed states in the EU`s eastern neighborhood.”
