(iPoster) The Kremlin’s Megaphone behind the Firewall: Russia Today’s War Framing on Weibo

• In Event: Poster Sessions: Polarization, Identity, and Democratic Vulnerability & Political Communication I
  In Poster Session: Poster Session: Political Communication I

Abstract

Despite bans and sanctions across much of the Western media ecosystem, Russian state media outlets such as Russia Today (RT) remain active and visible on Chinese social media platforms, particularly Weibo. This paper examines how RT frames the Russia-Ukraine war in China’s tightly controlled digital environment and how Chinese users engage with and respond to this foreign state-sponsored content. The study speaks to broader debates in political communication about propaganda adaptation, cross-national information flows, and the role of audience engagement and platform algorithms in authoritarian contexts, where information control coexists with selective openness.

Drawing on framing theory and research on digital nationalism, we conceptualize RT’s presence on Weibo as a case of cross-national amplification, in which foreign narratives gain traction when they align with domestic ideological priorities and platform incentives. Prior research suggests that China’s censorship regime operates through strategic selectivity, suppressing content that may facilitate collective mobilization while tolerating or amplifying ideologically congruent foreign material. This environment creates conditions under which foreign propaganda can circulate not only through state tolerance but also through bottom-up user interaction and algorithmic visibility, blurring the boundary between state-mediated messaging and participatory amplification.

We address seven research questions across three analytical dimensions. At the post level, we ask: RQ1 How does RT frame war-related content on Weibo? and RQ2 How do Chinese users engage with war-related versus non-war content in terms of likes, reposts, and comments? At the comment level, we examine RQ3 how users respond to war-related versus non-war content, RQ4 what stances (supportive, oppositional, or neutral) users express toward Russia or Vladimir Putin, and RQ5 which stances are associated with higher levels of engagement. Finally, at the interaction level, RQ6 and RQ7 assess whether RT’s war-related posts increase overall comment volume and shape stance-specific responses over time.

The study analyzes all publicly available posts from RT’s verified Weibo account between August 2021 and March 2024 (N = 39,743), along with 1.95 million associated user comments. Topic modeling using BERTopic was employed to identify dominant themes in both posts and comments, while large language model–assisted annotation was used to label war-related content and classify comment stances as supportive, oppositional, or neutral toward Russia or Vladimir Putin. Approximately 35% of RT’s posts were war-related, generating nearly 200,000 comments. Negative binomial regression models were used to predict engagement outcomes (likes, reposts, and comments), controlling for post characteristics such as multimedia use, text length, timing, and thematic category. To examine temporal dynamics, Granger causality tests were conducted to assess whether war-related posting activity preceded changes in overall comment volume and stance distribution.

Results show that RT’s Weibo output is heavily centered on the Russia-Ukraine war, with dominant frames emphasizing military conflict, Western sanctions, NATO involvement, and broader geopolitical confrontation. War-related posts significantly outperformed non-war content across all engagement metrics. Although user comments were more often neutral or oppositional, supportive comments consistently received more likes, suggesting affective, algorithmic, or coordinated amplification of pro-Russian sentiment. Temporal analyses further indicate that war-related posts Granger-cause increases in overall comment volume and oppositional responses, with shorter-lived but immediate spikes in supportive comments following major wartime events.

These findings advance political communication research by demonstrating how foreign state propaganda can gain discursive traction within an authoritarian media system through the interaction of framing strategies, user engagement, and platform algorithms. The study contributes to scholarship on media hybridity, digital nationalism, and cross-border propaganda by showing that narrative influence in China is not purely state-driven but emerges from a managed yet participatory information environment in which foreign and domestic actors jointly shape visibility, resonance, and political meaning.

Authors

• Ryan Wang, Louisiana State University

• Unregistered Participant