Keeping channels open or screening out? The digital practices of Baltic Russian-speakers during the Russia-Ukraine conflict

ABSTRACT

Inspired by Couldry’s conceptualisation of media-related practices, the authors investigate the ways Baltic Russian-speakers manage their digital information-seeking (sources of news) practices and interaction (communication partners). Amidst the Russia-Ukraine conflict and the ensuing tensions between Russia and the West, we consider how these digital practices lead to ideological heterogeneity or homogeneity. The conflict between Russia and Ukraine has put the transnational affiliations and practices of Baltic Russophones under pressure. This paper therefore asks how the polarised political environment and securitisation of the cross-border media practices of Baltic Russian-speakers by the national political elite has shaped how individuals respond by keeping channels open or screening content out. Based on a mixed-method study of the digital practices of Russian-speakers living in Estonia and Latvia, the authors argue that practices supporting digital homophily and digital heterophily are not mutually exclusive but appear in specific configurations. The avoidance of counter-oppositional views (screening out) is not absolute but rather mixed with practices that open channels from time to time.

KEYWORDS:

• Baltic Russian-speakers
• Russia-Ukraine conflict
• social media
• digital homophily
• digital heterophily

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Notes on contributors

Jānis Juzefovičs is a research fellow at the University of Tartu. He obtained a PhD in media and communication studies from the University of Westminster in 2014. His research interests focus on the study of Russian-speaking media audiences in Latvia and Estonia. He is the author of Broadcasting and National Imagination in Post-Communist Latvia: Defining the Nation, Defining Public Television (2017, Intellect).

Triin Vihalemm is a professor of communication research at the University of Tartu. Her researcher profile is sociology of communication with a focus on the role of communication in social change processes. A significant part of her scientific articles and book chapters deal with acculturation of the Russian-speaking population in Estonia since 1990s: the change of their language and media practices and identity.

Notes

1 This also explains our decision to include into the study only Russian-speakers living in Estonia and Latvia and to exclude those residing in Lithuania, another Baltic country having considerably smaller Russian-speaking minority.

Additional information

Funding

This work was supported by Estonian Research Council [grant number PUT1624].