When Fake News Isn’t Fake: The Geopolitics of Cross-Border News

• In Event: Truth, Post-Truth, and Popular Truth

Abstract

Many analysts in the US claim that Russia is using information-based techniques to destabilize American society. Allegedly, these information-based techniques consist of “fake news”, and the destabilization is effected by “undermining democracy”. Russia is said to do this through RT, formerly Russia Today, its global news network (ODNI, 2017), as well as through social media platforms.
I argue that such an analysis fails to understand what Russia is doing via RT.
In this paper I present findings of a content analysis of RT, and I interpret the data in light of scholarship about lying, about narrative-dissemination, and about the governability of democratic societies. I accept the claim that Russia is using information-based techniques to destabilize American society, but I argue that the techniques used are the opposite of what is claimed.
Russia’s approach in RT is to use truth as a weapon, relentlessly disseminating the views of American dissenters. RT’s news is not fake, and its effect is not to undermine democracy but rather to drive it to the point of social destabilization.
To understand Russia’s approach to social destabilization, one must understand social stabilization, the role of governance in achieving stability, and the mechanisms used to govern. Many governance mechanisms are information-based, and importantly, some of those information-based mechanisms are not wholly legitimate in the societies in which they are applied. Such illegitimate informational governance (IIG) plays an important role in achieving social stability. At the same time IIG is vulnerable to information-based attacks that expose its illegitimacy, thereby undermining governance and, ultimately, social stability.
Analysis of RT’s content suggests that RT undermines American society by exposing illegitimate informational governance. RT does not disseminate fake news, rather it attacks the illegitimate governance that plays a large role in achieving social stability.
Illegitimate informational-governance mechanisms include: lying, filtering/amplification of facts, and disseminating strategic narratives. I survey these in a four-part literature review. First, I examine theorists of IIG, including: Plato (“the noble lie”), Machiavelli (“trickery”), and Gramsci (“hegemony”). Second, I survey the scholars of the ethics of IIG, including Schopenhauer (on the social utility of religion, even if religion is false), the contradictions between the ethics of domestic governance and the ethics of international relations, and the Marxist concept of the dictatorship of the proletariat with its positive attitude toward propaganda.
Third, I survey empirical studies of the use of IIG in the US, including works by Mearsheimer (Why Leaders Lie, 2005), Walt (The Hell of Good Intentions, 2018), Herman (“necessary illusions”, “manufacturing consent”), Powers and Jablonski (The Real Cyberwar) and Friel and Falk (How the New York Times Misreports US Foreign Policy). These empirical studies document the not-insignificant application of IIG to American society.
Finally, I survey the literature on the subversion of IIG. This includes both scholarship that celebrates such subversion (often praising it as investigative reporting, transparency, and accountability,) and the literature that laments such subversion (condemning it as socially destabilizing, unpatriotic, dangerous.) Much of this literature has appeared in current policy debates, e.g. the US ODNI’s (2017) condemnation of RT and Russian accounts of “hybrid” information warfare (Gerasimov, 2016; Klein, 2018).
I conclude with reflections on RT. A content analysis of RT shows that most invited speakers are credible, based on their institutional affiliation. These finding undermine claims that Russia, through RT, seeks to undermine American social stability by disseminating fake news. Truth may be more subversive than falsehood. This imposes an age-old dilemma on US policy-makers. Should they allow RT to disseminate news and opinion that undermines US information governance, even if its content consists of not-fake news and alternative interpretation? Or should policy makers take a more pragmatic approach and defend US IIG against the corrosive effects of critique, even if US policymakers themselves must undermine democracy?

Gerasimov, V. (2016). The Value of Science is in the Foresight. Military Review, 96(1), 23.
Klein, H. (2018). INFORMATION WARFARE AND INFORMATION OPERATIONS: RUSSIAN AND US PERSPECTIVES. Journal of International Affairs, 71(1.5), 135-142.
ODNI (Office of the Director of National Intelligence). (2017). Assessing Russian Activities and Intentions in Recent US Elections.

Author

• Hans K. Klein, Georgia Institute of Technology