Why do pluralistic media systems emerge? Comparing media change in the Czech Republic and in Russia after the collapse of Communism

A quarter century after the collapse of Communism in the former Eastern bloc, a wide range of scholarly projects have been undertaken to compare and theorize processes of media change in the region. One question that scholars have sought to address is: what were the factors that crucially impacted how these media landscapes evolved? This essay aims to contribute to this debate by juxtaposing media change in two selected cases: the Czech Republic (as a best-case scenario in terms of convergence with the Western model) and Russia (as a scenario where convergence has been limited). Based on secondary analysis of a wide range of sources, the essay systematically exposes 11 crucial differences between the two countries and illustrates how these have impacted the processes of media change. The conclusion sets out how these findings could serve as a starting point and source of inspiration for future comparative research

Internet votes as a novel digital tool to stabilize non-democratic rule in Russia

Extant research on the consequences of the Internet for non-democratic politics has focused on how oppositional activists leverage new digital tools. By contrast, still, relatively little is known about how authoritarian elites proactively deploy digital technologies to legitimize their rule. This article contributes to filling this gap by scrutinizing one highly innovative tactic that has recently been adopted repeatedly by Russia’s ruling elites: the organization of ‘Internet votes’ to staff advisory bodies to the government. In contrast to online petitions, online votes are aimed at aggregating citizen preferences not on issues but on candidates, that is, on individuals who later act as political representatives. The article presents an in-depth case study of the first such Internet vote conducted in Russia in 2012. It concludes that ruling elites deployed the tool swiftly to (1) disempower oppositional activists and (2) convey to the mass public the image of a transparent, accountable and responsive government

Toward a Discourse Approach to the Comparative Study of Media and Politics

Leading communication scholars have recently called for questions of meaning and ideology to be brought back into comparative media research. This article heeds that call by delineating a discourse approach to the comparative study of media and politics. This discourse approach is introduced with reference to a formerly influential but recently stigmatized strand of research in the tradition of Four Theories of the Press by Siebert, Peterson, and Schramm (1956/1973), although it abandons and goes well beyond this work. To illustrate the benefits of such an approach, a case study of the media- politics discourse dominant in Russia in 2012–2013 is presented. The findings are then marshalled to unravel three seemingly paradoxical observations about the Russian media landscape

Comment Sections of News Websites as Counterpublic Spaces

Research scrutinizing political talk online has been developed largely against the backdrop of deliberative discursive norms and considered political talk without a systematic analysis of surrounding mass-mediated discourses. By contrast, this study operationalizes counterpublic theory as an alternative theoretical perspective and analyzes comments on news websites as a reaction to hegemonic mainstream public spheres. It juxtaposes a qualitative framing analysis of all articles about a new anti-Euro party in devotedly pro-European Germany published on 9 news websites in the week following the 2013 elections (n = 22) with a content analysis of all comments posted below these articles (n = 3,154). It finds counterpublic spheres differently shaped in comment sections of right- and left-leaning, and tabloid and nontabloid, outlets. Consequences for democracy are discussed

Targeting dominant publics: How counterpublic commenters align their efforts with mainstream news

This study illustrates how the emphasis structure of counterpublic discourses surfacing online can be predicted by that of the dominant publics that these counterpublics—at the argumentative level—so resolutely oppose. Deploying a single common case study design, the article scrutinizes a counterpublic discourse that surfaced in the comment sections of Germany’s opinion-leading news websites in the week after the surprising electoral success of a new anti-Euro party, the Alternative für Deutschland (AfD). Quantitative content analysis identifies 75% of all comments posted (N = 2955) to all articles about the AfD (N = 19) as part of an anti-Euro counterpublic. While this counterpublic sharply opposed the editorial lines of Germany’s unanimously pro-common-currency media, it still aligned its efforts closely with this dominant public—albeit at a deeper level. As the findings demonstrate, the frequencies with which commenters adopted six emphasis frames were significantly predicted by the frequencies of these frames in mainstream news

Making sense of the news in a hybrid regime: how young Russians decode state TV and an oppositional blog

The past 2 decades have seen an increasingly intense debate on how the rise of Internet-mediated communication has impacted politics in (semi)authoritarian regimes. Previous works have adopted a wide array of approaches. Yet, to date no major study has investigated how citizens in these regimes are making sense of political messages they encounter online in the new, more fragmented media environments of the Internet age. In an initial attempt to fill this gap, this explorative study juxtaposes how young Russians make sense of a liberal-democratic blog entry and, by contrast, a news broadcast from state-controlled TV. On the basis of the findings from 20 in-depth interviews, the article discusses promising avenues for future audience research in hybrid regime

Blogging for the sake of the president: the online diaries of Russian governors

Many Western researchers have hailed blogs of politicians as new, interactive and ‘inherently democratic’ tools of political communication. Yet, as this essay illustrates, blogs can be of comparatively even greater appeal to politicians in semi-authoritarian political contexts. In Russia, 29 out of 83 regional leaders (roughly 35%) were keeping a weblog in May 2010. This essay provides a comprehensive content analysis of all governors’ blogs and, subsequently, fleshes out a typology of three characteristic types. It is argued that politicians’ blogs are playing a far greater role in generating legitimacy for the Russian political system than they do in democracies, because the semi-authoritarian Russian system lacks other mechanisms which generate (input) legitimacy in developed democracies, such as highly competitive elections

From connective to collective action: internet elections as a digital tool to centralize and formalize protest in Russia

<p>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). <i>The logic of connective action: Digital media and the personalization of contentious politics</i>. 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.</p

sj-docx-1-hij-10.1177_19401612241230284 – Supplemental material for Conduits of the Kremlin’s Informational Influence Abroad? How German-Language Alternative Media Outlets Are Connected to Russia’s Ruling Elites

Supplemental material, sj-docx-1-hij-10.1177_19401612241230284 for Conduits of the Kremlin’s Informational Influence Abroad? How German-Language Alternative Media Outlets Are Connected to Russia’s Ruling Elites by Arista Beseler and Florian Toepfl in The International Journal of Press/Politics</p