*********************************
There is now a CONTENT FREEZE for Mercury while we switch to a new platform. It began on Friday, March 10 at 6pm and will end on Wednesday, March 15 at noon. No new content can be created during this time, but all material in the system as of the beginning of the freeze will be migrated to the new platform, including users and groups. Functionally the new site is identical to the old one. webteam@gatech.edu
*********************************
Summary Sentence: Associate Professor Hans Klein presents an overview of Russian influence in the U.S. public sphere.
Full Summary: Associate Professor Hans Klein is the featured speaker at the Cybersecurity Lecture Series, when he reviews Russian influence in the Western public sphere via RT.com ("Russia Today").
Hans Klein
Cybersecurity Lecture Series by IISP2017’s biggest news story has been Russia’s alleged use of social media to try to influence Western elections. Much criticism is directed towards RT.com, the “Russia Today” news network created in 2005 by the Russian government, which offers round-the-clock reporting from offices in Moscow, London, and Washington, DC. RT has regularly been denounced as a propaganda outlet, but a content analysis of RT’s flagship public affairs program does not directly support this claim. RT features dissident voices from legitimate Western institutions, suggesting that its media strategy is more one of muckraking and critique than of outright disinformation. Russia’s investment in RT can be understood as a geopolitical strategy of undermining informational governance in the West by supporting muckraking, critical thinking, and anti-hegemonic narratives of public affairs. For societies subject to such reporting, this strategy of “geopolitical muckraking” may offer some benefits insofar as it diversifies voices in the public sphere, highlights wrong-doing, and counters dominant narratives disseminated by domestic media.
Hans K. Klein, Ph.D., is associate professor in the School of Public Policy at the Georgia Institute of Technology. His research interests include: Internet governance, globalization and regulation, the development of large scale systems, federal technology policy, the politics of innovation, Intelligent Transportation Systems, public access television, and Internet and democracy. He earned a Ph.D. in political science at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, after earning an M.S. in technology and policy at MIT, and a B.S. in engineering at Princeton University.
