The Logic of Virtual Protest: The Week After the 2011 Elections (original) (raw)
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One of the unmistakable characteristics of Russia’s ‘White House’ uprising that led to the regime change in August of 1991 was its broad popular support. The political upheaval that initially found a buttress in Muscovite urban middle classes soon transcended all social strata and geography ending dominance of the Communist Party in Russia. However, the mass protests in opposition to authoritarian rule that gained energy in 2011has failed to generate the same momentum necessary to unite diverse social and political classes and topple the ruling regime. In both cases, social Networks of communication played an important role in the evolution of contentious politics because they connected actors across space, facilitated communication, exchanged information on tactics and strategies, and produced new knowledge. However, it is not clear exactly how such social networks interacted with other contextual factors to bring about a national protest movement of su cient proportions to topple an authoritarian regime. Drawing on evidence from the popular protests in the Russian Federation between 2011 and 2014, surveys conducted among quiescent citizens, participants in popular protest and digital activists, this paper argues that social media (1) allowed a “digital activists” to form personal networks that initially circumvented the national media narrative by brokering information for outside mainstream media; (2) helped to overcome the “free rider” problem of collective action by catalyzing anger-frustration and reporting the magnitude of protest events; and (3) contributed in the formation of a collective identity supportive of protest activity that transcended geographical and socio-economic disparities by providing a shared, mobilizing element of emotional grievance; (4) the internet based social networks have failed to produce results exemplified by Twitter and Facebook revolutions of the Arab Spring, and eject regime change in the Russian Federation or make tangible impact on domestic policies.
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The Russian Federation has recently introduced several legislative regulations that limit operations of the opposition, especially of the extra-parliamentary opposition. At the same time, a significant proportion of opposition activity has moved to the Internet, which played an important role, providing an organizational tool and motivation for potential participants, for example during the 2011–2012 protests. The latest major social protests that took place in March 2017 were triggered by online publications on the corruption links of Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev. Therefore, the purpose of this paper is to answer the question of what role the Internet plays in modern Russia and what is its relevance for people and opposition organizations. At the same time, the restrictions on the functioning of opposition parties will also be analyzed, especially those that also have an impact on the virtual sphere. The considerations will be supplemented by an analysis of websites and other vir...
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This paper analyses debates on Twitter associated with the events of the 2011–2013 Russian protests against the government, with the wide-scale demonstration in front of Kremlin on Manezhnaya Square (Manezhka) on 18 July 2013, as well as other rallies in more than 35 cities spanning Russia. It indicates the specific Russian character of mobilisation and participation, and the implications of the internet and new communication technologies in such events, having positioned the Russian experience within the worldwide context, and in line with the frame of theories of emotions of protest and social movements (Jasper, Goodwin) and digital communication networks (Castells). The paper further contributes to understanding and awareness concerning the implications of the internet, and also in relation to the characteristics specific to the Russian protest movement in the current situation of the large-scale debates on the differences between Russian Manezhka and Ukrainian Maidan.
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This article analyses digital activism comparatively in relation to three Post-Soviet regions: Russian/anti-Russian in Crimea and online political deliberation in Belarus, in juxtaposition to Estonia’s digital governance approach. The authors show that in civil societies in Russia, Ukraine and Belarus, cultural forms of digital activism, such as internet memes, thrive and produce and reproduce effective forms of political deliberation. In contrast to Estonia, in authoritarian regimes actual massive mobilization and protest is forbidden, or is severely punished with activists imprisoned, persecuted or murdered by the state. This is consistent with use of cultural forms of digital activism in countries where protest is illegal and political deliberation is restricted in government-controlled or oligarchic media. Humorous political commentary might be tolerated online to avoid mobilization and decompress dissent and resistance, yet remaining strictly within censorship and surveillance ...
Features and Effects of the Digital Technologies in the Belarusian Protest
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In the following article we aim to show, firstly, how IT and, more broadly, digital systems determine the specificity (both in a positive and negative sense) of Belarusian protests. And secondly, the systems change or call into question traditional political or philosophical categories such as citizenship, state boundaries, care, division into private and public spheres, representation, etc. The digital sphere plays a significant role in Belarusian protests and its potential is used to a much greater extent than is usually the case when protesters use social networks to quickly exchange information and organise events. Here we analyse not only the use of social networks, but also the creation of new IT products and platforms with the help of which citizens are 'connected' to the protest movement. Digital systems have proposed new organisational forms-horizontal and leaderless. The protest itself can be described as shimmering and peripheral. Thus, it was this horizontal format that was opposed to the rigid hierarchy of power and gave us a new sense of common future.
Information, Communication & Society, 2017
Over the past decade, an extensive body of literature has emerged on the question of how new communication technologies can facilitate new modes of organizing protest. However, the extant research has tended to focus on how digitally enabled protest operates. By contrast, this study investigates why, how, and with what consequences a heavily digitally enabled 'connective action network' has transitioned over time to a more traditional 'collective action network' [Bennett, W. L., Segerberg, A. (2013). The logic of connective action: Digital media and the personalization of contentious politics. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, p. 47]. Specifically, the article scrutinizes the trajectory of the Russian protests 'For Fair Elections.' This wave of street protests erupted after the allegedly fraudulent parliamentary elections of December 2011 and continued into 2013. As is argued, the protests were initially organized as an 'organizationally enabled connective action network.' However, after eight months of street protests, Russian activists reorganized the network into a more centralized, more formalized 'organizationally brokered collective action network.' In order to implement this transition, they deployed 'Internet elections' as a cardinally new digital tactic of collective action. Between 20 and 22 October 2012, more than 80,000 activists voted online in order to create a new leadership body for the entire protest movement, the 'Coordination Council of the Opposition.' As the study has found, activists implemented this transition because, within the specific Russian socio-political context, enduring engagement and stable networks appeared crucial to the movement's long-term success. With regard to achieving these goals, the more formalized collective action network appeared superior to the connective action form.