Framing the Olympics: RT’s Responses to Controversies Linked With Russia’s Presence at the Winter Games from 2014-2022

Sammanfattning: The Russian Federation’s presence on the global stage of the Olympic Games has been linked with considerable controversy from 2014 onwards. The nation’s use of international sport for promoting its image, state-sponsored doping, and Russia’s illegal occupations of Ukraine staged in close time proximity with the Games are all controversies which have taken their toll on the country’s image, both within and beyond the context of sport. Using a news framing theory and analysis, this thesis examines how RT, a state-sponsored media outlet that operates in alignment with the Russian state, counters these image-affecting controversies through its framings of Russia at the Winter Olympics between 2014 and 2022. This research finds that, while RT has consistently functioned to defend and potentially improve Russia’s image, its framing tactics have shifted substantially over time, and vary significantly depending on the controversy addressed. RT’s articles linked with Russia’s use of sport to promote its image used a wide variety of frames to highlight the impact of Russia’s athletes, justify the funding of the Sochi Olympics, and accuse Western media of “Russia-bashing”. Articles related to Russian doping shifted over time from framing Russian athletes as powerless victims of sport governing body decisions to highlighting supposed Western interference in sport. Articles linked with Russia’s illegal occupation of Ukraine increased substantially in 2022, and most often framed the issue by focusing on the moral values associated with athletes from the two nations. This thesis found that RT’s controversy-linked content increased in publication frequency over time, which along with the above shifts in framing, showcase the increasingly aggressive politicisation of RT’s Olympic sport coverage, which lacks exploration in prior scholarly research.