RSS Feed
May 22nd, 2015 
David Schulberg 
The US taxpayer-funded Voice of America is losing out to Russian multimedia broadcaster RT in popularity on social networks and services, according to analysis by BBG Watch, an independent watchdog blog that follows American media outreach abroad.
The Broadcasting Board of Governors, the United States’
bipartisan agency that supervises government-sponsored media,
targeting international audiences, is being closely monitored by
volunteers, “including many current and former employees of
US international broadcasting,” who call themselves BBG
Watch.
READ MORE: US introduces $30 mn bill to target
‘Russian propaganda’, ISIS threat
The group compared social media statistics of what it
described as the “coolest” videos from the American and
the Russian media outlets posted during the first two weeks of
May. They said they did so to get a better idea of how the rivals
are doing their job in the “information war, at least in the
competition between VOA and RT among English speaking social
media users worldwide.”
“This is not by any means a small or insignificant group and
includes millions of media savvy and well educated people outside
of the United States — Middle East, Africa, Eurasia, Latin
America,” BBG Watch noted, pointing out that RT’s YouTube
stats “do not appear to be driven primarily by US
viewers.”
One of the video pairs in the “contest” was VOA’s
“New Military Technology Goes Public,” about the
Pentagon’s first ever Defense Department Lab Day versus RT’s
“Putin puts his skates on for NHL, scores 8 goals.” The
videos were posted at approximately the same time.
READ MORE: For propaganda & ‘democracy
promotion’: State Dept seeks budget to counter RT
Russian-made video got seven times more views and six times more
likes on Facebook than the VOA one. The number of YouTube views
was 21,471 for the Russian video and 485 for the American one.
Two more pairs of rival videos – featuring World War II Victory
anniversary content, as well as a news interview and a news
report – also demonstrated RT was significantly ahead in terms of
both views and “likes” on social media.
Although the American media is generally accustomed to conducting
an “information war” of its own essentially unrivaled,
the latest results of “competition between VOA and RT”
show that progress made by new rivals of US media does not go
unnoticed.
READ MORE: EU readies action plan to counter Russian media
‘disinformation’
Last year, a meeting of US international media chiefs concluded that the crisis in Ukraine had shown that
Russia was strong in getting its message across to international
audiences, with the BBG having outlined the need for Washington
to create a Russian-language TV news channel.
Obama foreign policy adviser Ben Rhodes has then mentioned
“many different platforms,” including YouTube and
Twitter, which the Russians have been using widely in conjunction
with TV broadcasting. Just months after the meeting, RT’s five
YouTube channels combined have hit the 2 billion views benchmark,
strengthening the channel’s role as the leading news provider on
the popular video hosting service.
READ MORE: It’s official: RT is most watched news
network on YouTube with over 2bn views
In January, the new BBG chief Andrew Lack listed “Russia Today”
(sic) in the same breath as the Islamic State (IS, formerly
ISIS/ISIL) and Boko Haram terror groups, having claimed that RT
posed a significant challenge his agency was dealing with.
Nothing makes me want to watch @RT_com more than to have a US
propaganda minister tell me not to watch it. #NewsIsNotTerror
— Lionel (@LionelMedia) January
23, 2015
A month later, Secretary of State John Kerry asked US lawmakers for more money for propaganda and
“democracy promotion” programs around the world, having
directly referred to RT’s influence. RT’s budget for 2015 is
13.85 billion rubles (some $277 million, according to the current
exchange rate). By contrast, the US government media receives
$721 million.
Source Article from http://rt.com/news/261133-bbg-watch-rt-popularity/?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=RSS
Voice of America falling behind RT on Facebook & YouTube – BBG Watch
http://rt.com/news/261133-bbg-watch-rt-popularity/?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=RSS
http://rt.com/rss/news/
RT – News
RT : News
http://rt.com/static/img/RT_logo_250x250.png
Related posts:
Views: 0
Posted in 
Tags: 
