Surfing the Shortwaves : A rhetorical comparison of articles of the Syrian Civil War from Voice of America and Sputnik News, May 2017

Sammanfattning: The aim of this thesis is to compare content on the websites of Voice of America and Sputnik News. This includes comparing the website content in general, including categories and non-news content available on the websites apart from articles. A selected number of articles were also analysed for an in-depth study and comparison between the two websites. The differences between the websites was studied by examining differences in how the same topic was treated differently on each website. In addition, the strategies used by both websites to attract visitors were identified. This was then compared with historical research done on the shortwave radio stations that are the precursors to these websites.                       The study is a rhetorical analysis of five articles from Voice of America, and five articles from Sputnik News. All articles analysed are about the Syrian Civil War. This, together with the non-news content is then compared, both between the two websites, but also with earlier research in order to see if the strategy has changed through history. The propaganda models of Persuasion, Information and Goodwill are key to these studies.                       The analysis revealed that the difference in usage of rhetoric and “propaganda models” were fairly similar between the two websites. There were however certain differences, such as Sputnik News had more Entertainment, while Voice of America contained more educational content. There were also differences in which languages, and thus, what parts of the world the websites has as their target audiences. One big difference was in the length of the articles.   Keywords: Propaganda, Shortwave Radio, Voice of America, Sputnik News, Rhetorical analysis