Sputnik News and the Russian Disinformation Campaign in Vietnam

MEDIA, TECHNOLOGY AND SOCIETY PROGRAMME

About the Webinar

The Russian invasion of Ukraine in February 2022 divided global public opinion. It drew condemnation from the West and its allies, but not from Vietnam, where Sputnik News – a Russian arm of the Kremlin’s propaganda, has openly propagated an anti-Kyiv and anti-NATO narrative in the Vietnamese language.

Despite its intensified efforts in the form of regular live pages to glorify Russian military personnel and discredit the Ukrainians, Sputnik’s impact has been limited. Nonetheless, facilitated by a section of Vietnamese state media, Sputnik will continue to play a polarising role in the Vietnamese media landscape as long as Vietnam’s communist elite needs an ally in the information war against perceived external and internal challenges to their rule.

This webinar will examine Sputnik’s webpages and five military live news pages to offer an in-depth assessment of Russian disinformation in Vietnamese. It will also perform a content analysis of pro- and anti-Russian responses from Vietnamese Facebook users vis-à-vis the war in Ukraine.

About the Speaker

Mr Thanh Giang Nguyen is a Former Visiting Senior Fellow at ISEAS – Yusof Ishak Institute, specialising in media control and censorship, and a former news editor at BBC World Service Languages in London, United Kingdom. Educated in Poland, he has maintained an interest in the politics of Eastern Europe throughout his long career with the BBC. He is also a regular commentator on Vietnam and Southeast Asia for media outlets such as BBC News, the Guardian, NPR and regional media.

Registration

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