<p>During the 2010s, Russia, like numerous other countries, implemented state-level scientific policies aimed at internationalizing research primarily by increasing visibility in global citation databases. Through bibliometric analysis, this paper not only evaluates international visibility but also contributes to methodological debates on the validity and limitations of citation-based metrics as indicators of scholarly integration. Using a dataset of 2,011 publications by Russian media and communication scholars indexed in the Web of Science (2017–2021), we analyze citation patterns to identify factors associated with international scholarly engagement. Fewer than 10% of publications received foreign citations, and those that did were typically published in high-ranking WoS indexes, involved international collaboration, or addressed universal themes. In contrast, the majority of articles – published in Russian-language journals indexed in ESCI – were cited almost exclusively by domestic scholars. These findings expose the methodological paradox of metrics-led internationalization: quantitative visibility often masks a lack of substantive integration into global academic discourse. We argue that such patterns are symptomatic of broader structural issues in bibliometric evaluation systems, especially in the social sciences and humanities. By unpacking these dynamics, our study contributes both empirically and methodologically to ongoing debates on academic peripheries, citation practices, and the epistemic consequences of performance-based research policies.</p>