How authoritarian states sculpt a warped alternative reality in our news feeds
theconversation.com
Russia and China push content that depicts western states as chaotic, immoral and even just weird.

cross-posted from: https://scribe.disroot.org/post/5540170

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Both Russia and China are critical of the “international rules-based order”, a framework of liberal rules and political norms that emerged after the second world war. They see this order as western-centric and want to reshape the global order in their interest.

Military and economic collaboration form part of their efforts to challenge this order, but global media and online spaces are important too. Both states, for example, frequently disseminate stories that portray western countries as neo-colonial powers.

Another theme is that democracies are hypocritical actors who preach equality and fairness but do not practice it. Stories of a lack of unity in western alliances like Nato or the EU are also consistent in Russian and Chinese narration. Conversely, Russia and China are presented as logical and sane countries, seeking to protect other, more vulnerable nations from western exploitation.

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It’s often the way a story is told that misleads. Details are withheld or taken out of context. Speculative information is presented as fact. This creates a distorted version of the truth.

The stories are often told in emotive terms in a bid to trigger our anger, shock, fear or resentment. For example, in the context of the war in Ukraine, disinformation might suggest that our governments are betraying us by getting involved in foreign wars, or that ordinary citizens are the ones paying the price for the ambitions of a corrupt elite.

They are laden with scandal and sensationalism, skipping nuance in favour of emotional resonance. This ensures the stories are shared and promoted across social media.

The truth can be complex and, at times, boring. Yet by capitalising on our tendency to gravitate towards the sensational, Russia and China can drip-feed a specific worldview into our own – where democracy is ineffective and chaotic and where they offer a fairer, functional future.

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  • Em Adespoton@lemmy.caEnglish
    5·
    10 days ago

    There’s two layers to the warped reality; the second layer is in social media reacting to the news feeds instead of spending time and energy discussing forward-looking topics.

  • TotallynotJessica@lemmy.blahaj.zoneEnglish
    51·
    10 days ago

    Hold up. Here I was expecting actual lies, not real criticisms of how many countries, particularly America, demand hypocritical shit. Like, even if one fully believes in the liberal rules based order, the largest liberal world powers have consistently undermined it out of naked national self interest. China and Russia are able to claim they’re the reasonable ones because countries like America, France, and the UK have been so unreasonable. The only misleading thing is that Russia and China will act differently if they ever achieve a similar hegemony.

    When I think alternative reality, I think of the way every right winger on earth claims lgbtq people are a nefarious plot by whoever their enemies are. I think of how genocides are denied and blind national pride is hyped up to keep people from seeing the flaws of their own system. If anything, the real reality distortion is framing these cracks in the liberal world order as distortions themselves, not a self inflicted problem that Russia and China are able to rationally exploit.