The Influence of Russian State-Controlled Narratives on the Italian Public Discourse

On 24th February 2022, Russia started a full-scale invasion of Ukraine. In an attempt to justify the invasion, Russian media engaged in an information war making use of false information and a well-thought-out language to describe events. Preferred targets of pro-Kremlin narratives are alternative media worldwide, with Italian ones being no exception. While there is little literature explaining how misinformation and propaganda narratives travel from propaganda outlets to domestic media, framing and intermedia agenda-setting theories offer a valuable framework for understanding how Russian narratives spread from Russian media to Italian alternative media. This process can be explained by looking at the strategic framing of specific events and agenda setting, that is the selection of the topics to be covered by the media. Using these two concepts as a theoretical framework, this work presents an analysis of the war-related content of two alternative media closely linked to Italian anti-system parties. Specifically, it aims to investigate the elements of the Russian full-scale invasion framing that have spilled into Italian alternative media sources, ByoBlu and Il Paragone. To this end, this study addresses the following research question: RQ: What are the similarities in framing of the Ukraine war-related events between Russian state-control media and Italian alternative media outlets? Using a mixed-method approach, we employ natural language processing-based text similarity analysis and qualitative content analysis to investigate which narratives of the Russian propaganda reached Italian alternative audiences. Specifically, it employs text-similarity and content analysis of articles linked to the invasion of Ukraine from two Russian state-controlled news outlets, Russia Today (RT) and Vesti.ru, and two Italian alternative news outlets, ByoBlu and Il Paragone. Our preliminary results show that Italian anti-system media and Russian state-controlled media present similarities in terms of topics of discussion and framing of such topics. An interesting finding that emerged from the present research is that Italian alternative media tends to also spread pro-Russian narratives that are country-specific and inspired by local experiences and that are not necessarily reflected in the Russian press. This speaks to a broader mechanism within alternative media networks. Rather than merely reproducing Russian state frames, Italian alternative media selectively reinterpret and reframe foreign narratives through local lenses. As a result, Italian alternative media not only aligns with Russian framing on certain global issues but also subtly reinforces Russia’s influence by making these narratives appear organically Italian.