To Know Us is to Love Us: Public Diplomacy and International Broadcasting in Contemporary Russia and China

Gary D. Rawnsley, onlinelibrary.wiley.com

Rawnsley image from

Keywords:

international broadcasting;public diplomacy;CCTV;RT;propaganda

China and Russia have devoted significant resources to developing their international broadcasting capacity as an instrument of public diplomacy. Focusing on CCTV-N (China) and RT (Russia), this article discusses the strategies each has developed to communicate with international audiences and further the foreign policy ambitions of policy makers in Beijing and Moscow. It highlights the differences between the two stations – namely CCTV-N's ambition to rectify perceived distortions in the global flow of news about China, and RT's focus on reporting events in the US. Hence the case studies expose the fine line between propaganda and public diplomacy.