CYBER MONOLOGUES WITH AN AUTOCRAT: THE LIBERAL-NETWORKED PUBLIC SPHERE AND THE 2011-2012 PROTEST MOVEMENT IN RUSSIA

This study explores the impact of information communication technologies on the public sphere and political participation in Russia. It argues that communication technologies have enabled a new communicative space, a networked public sphere that interacts with the public sphere of the traditional mass media, but encompasses a wider range of human interaction. Together the networked public sphere and the liberal mass media constitute what is termed a liberal-networked public sphere, a hybrid public space that allows people to act politically and contest the regime's ownership of the public discourse. The regime also recognizes the political value, and dangers, of the liberal-networked public sphere and adjusts its tactics in the attempt to control this space. The result is a new power game, in which the new hybrid communication space becomes the main locus where Russian civil society organizes and contests with the regime for its rights for information and political participation.