Do authoritarian states always win communication wars?
Kjetil Selvik, Banafsheh Ranji, Elena Şimanschi and Elisabeth Johansson-Nogués discuss the role of media in authoritarian states, illustrated by the examples of Iran and Russia.
The discipline of International Relations has increasingly looked at how authoritarian states, especially in comparison to their democratic counterparts, have a tendency of manipulating narratives around political events, both domestically and internationally. However, if we look a little more closely, and beyond the simple binaries, the picture is less than straightforward. Important questions continue to loom around the vulnerabilities of such authoritarian states, and the extent to which they control the media, and the media controls them.
This blog symposium brings together four authors from International Affairs to address these questions by looking at two countries — Iran and Russia. Kjetil Selvik and Banafsheh Ranji show how Iran’s desire to control the narrative around General Qasem Soleimani’s assassination reveals the communication weaknesses of its regime. Subsequently, Elena Şimanschi and Elisabeth Johansson-Nogués discuss the many ways in which the media in Russia not only aligns with the government’s directives, but also goes one, or a few, steps further in shaping viewers’ perception of important events like Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.
Iran and the assassination of Qasem Soleimani
The downing of a Ukrainian passenger plane by Iran’s Islamic Revolution Guard Corps on 8 January 2020 occurred amid escalating tensions following the US killing of General Qasem Soleimani. For three days, the Iranian state sought to conceal the truth of what had happened, insisting that a technical error had caused the plane to crash, and that rumours to the contrary were part of an act of psychological warfare by the US.
Meanwhile, a UK-based Iranian internet security activist received a video of missiles hitting the plane from an anonymous user in Tehran. The video was published on social media and broadcast via international media and Persian satellite-based television channels, including the UK-based Iran International, which is reported to have Saudi Arabian funding. Subsequently, Iranian activists clashed with politicians on social media. In the end, Iranian state authorities bowed to the mounting pressures and admitted their mistake.
Communication weaknesses of authoritarian states
The above-mentioned example illustrates the difficulties a state like Iran faces in controlling the narrative in a conflict situation with a looming risk of war. There is a widespread belief that authoritarian states excel in the realm of communication, while democracies are vulnerable to information subversion. However, this perspective is incomplete. When it comes to employing communication strategies that go beyond distortion, authoritarian states exhibit more weaknesses than strengths.
First, authoritarian states produce hostile diasporas which influence the reception of state narratives abroad and can influence the domestic public debate. Second, political opposition against such states can be instrumentalized by foreign adversaries through transnational media, thus weakening the state’s control over the media. Saudi Arabia’s support for Iran International is a key example. Third, authoritarian states face trust issues due to their reliance on secrecy and deception. Lastly, as illustrated above, the exposure of lies can lead to communication disasters.
The communication weaknesses identified here are inherent in the operations of most authoritarian states. Yet, a range of factors impact the outcomes of narrative battles, necessitating research in each case. State control over digital infrastructure, elite factionalism, the size and location of diasporas, foreign power interventions, the nature of the conflicts and the narratives employed are all elements that influence the position of authoritarian states.
Kjetil Selvik is a research professor and head of the research group on peace, conflict and development at the Norwegian Institute of International Affairs (NUPI), Norway.
Banafsheh Ranji is a postdoctoral research fellow in sociology at the Norwegian University of Science and Technology (NTNU), Norway.
Read more about this topic in their open access article ‘Messaging Soleimani’s killing: the communication vulnerabilities of authoritarian states’.
Russian media: Far from a passive actor
The nature of the relationship between the media and the state is highly contingent on the type of regime in the state concerned. In democratic settings, the media has the autonomy to decide whether to amplify or counterbalance the government’s assertions. Conversely, in authoritarian or hybrid contexts, state regulation of the media can range from tight control over the information ecosystem to considerable freedom of expression, with the condition that the media aligns with governmental editorial directives on sensitive issues important to the regime. Russia serves as an example of the latter.
In 2022, the Russian Federal Authority for Communications, Roskomnadzor, decreed that media outlets could only draw on accounts from official government sources regarding the war in Ukraine. The violation of this rule would lead to an administrative fine of up to 5 million roubles and the immediate blocking of such materials by Roskomnadzor, in accordance with Article 15.3 of Federal Law №149-FZ. Moreover, the expansion of the ‘foreign agents’ law virtually eliminated all independent and foreign news sources.
However, even in tightly controlled media contexts like Russia, traditional media can become actors in their own right. Popular federal channels such as Channel One and Russia-1 do not simply passively transmit the government’s claims to their audience. Rather, they actively contribute to shaping how the news is presented to the audience. For instance, partisan academics, experts and public figures are often presented in talk shows as having expertise and diverse perspectives, being sought after to bolster the credibility of the (dis)information being disseminated. For instance, former Ukrainian President Viktor Yanukovych, who sought refuge in Russia after the 2014 Euromaidan crisis along with erstwhile members of his government, is frequently featured in Russian media discussing various topics related to Ukraine.
Furthermore, the news is curated to become emotionally resonant with its audience. For instance, real footage of devastated cities in Donbas, paired with the misleading assertion that the Ukrainian armed forces have been behind such bombings, is designed to incite anger and a sense of injustice among the Russian public. Such emotional news appeals distort Russians’ perceptions of Ukraine and of the nature of the conflict, while cultivating the necessary emotional mobilization for widespread domestic support for the so-called ‘special military operation’.
Rethinking assumptions about the media
Mainstream understanding of authoritarian regimes often portrays the media as being dictated to and as mere conveyors of (dis)information. However, the above-mentioned example of Russian media coverage of the war in Ukraine reveals that despite the obligation to adhere to government priorities on sensitive issues, media outlets demonstrate creativity and autonomy in producing content to ensure its resonance and impact. This autonomy becomes crucial in today’s highly connected society where individuals have opportunities to travel abroad and have connections beyond the regime’s influence. In such scenarios, the media’s capacity to produce highly elaborate fabricated accounts of people, locations and incidents, aiming to manipulate emotional ties and offer emotional satisfaction, becomes pivotal in shaping public opinion and fostering support for governmental agendas.
Elena Şimanschi is a PhD candidate in the programme of Political Science, Public Policy and International Relations at the Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona, Spain.
Elisabeth Johansson-Nogués is Associate Professor at Institut Barcelona d’Estudis Internacionals and Visiting Fellow at the Department of International Relations, London School of Economics and Political Science, UK.
Read more about this topic in their free article ‘Fabricating a war? Russian (dis)information on Ukraine’.
All views are individual not institutional.
