New Social Media: Modernisation and Democratisation in Russia

Abstract

The European Union (EU)–Russia Partnership for Modernisation (P4M) seemingly indicated a shift in the relationship from a basis in a democratising discourse to a modernising one. This article argues that despite Russia's view of modernisation as being about economic growth and innovation, for the EU democratisation remained an important priority. Which vision, however, has been vindicated? To answer this question, the focus is on the use of computer-mediated communication, occasioned by the questions asked since mass public demonstrations began in Russia in late 2011 about whether those protests were evidence of Russia undergoing its own ‘spring’ in the way seen in many parts of the Arab world in 2010. These comparisons were drawn primarily because of the perceived role of new technologies in helping ordinary Russians to mobilise and publicise protest. Looking at modernisation through the prism of social media is revealing of the extent to which Russians use modern technology and of the extent to which Russia is democratising. The article concludes that there is evidence of modernising and democratising effects but that an increasingly repressive government approach looks like creating effective obstacles to the EU and Russian visions of modernisation alike.

Key words:

• Russia
• modernisation
• democratisation
• new technologies
• computer-mediated communication
• social media

Notes

1 All statistics in this section come from InternetStats.com, last updated on 31 December 2011.

2 This was a nationwide survey, N = 1601. The poll excluded email activity alone.

3 The ninth came with the incorporation of Crimea into Russia in 2014.

4 This analysis is not consistent globally or across all internet usage. Ignite Social Media data show enormous gender differences depending on where one is looking. In Asia and Germany, for instance, far more women than men use the Facebook equivalent in their country.

5 VK is the clear market leader with 200 million plus registered users, Odnoklassniki second with approximately 88 million.

6 So called after Moscow's ring road around which protestors wearing their white ribbons of protest would stand in demonstration against perceived corruption and electoral fraud.

7 Bellona is a Norway-based environmental NGO which has been working in and on Russia since 1986 (see Bellona, 2012).

8 While the focus here is Russia, so-called liberal democracies have also proved to be less than committed to protecting the freedoms of their own citizens, to say nothing of those of their allies, PRISM being just the most well-known, rather than only one, of these scandals. On 1 April 2012, the BBC reported the British government intends putting through legislation allowing them to monitor e-mail, web and phone-based usage (BBC, 2012). Trespasses upon civil liberties are therefore not the sole purview of authoritarian states.

9 Roskomnadzor is analogous to the US Stop Online Piracy Act (SOPA) and has met with similar levels of condemnation.