© COPYRIGHT by Yulia S. Danilina 2013 ALL RIGHTS RESERVED To my parents, Sergey and Marina CYBER MONOLOGUES WITH AN AUTOCRAT: THE LIBERAL-NETWORKED PUBLIC SPHERE AND THE 2011-2012 PROTEST MOVEMENT IN RUSSIA BY Yulia S. Danilina ABSTRACT 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 that interacts with the public sphere of the liberal 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. ii ACKNOWLEDGMENTS I would like to express my deep gratitude and appreciation to a number of people whose help, advice, and support made this project possible. First of all, I would like to thank my academic advisor, Professor Linda Lucia Lubrano, who got me thinking about the interconnections between technology, society, and social and political change, and who has been so generous with her time talking about, reading, and commenting on this manuscript. Her patient guidance and supervision were crucial in ensuring that this work remained theoretically grounded, as the main arguments were often potentially lost in the great mass of data. She was also my mentor in English, relentlessly editing my long sentences with many dependent clauses and complex formulations of simple ideas. I will always be grateful to her for the role she played in my intellectual development, and for her deep knowledge and understanding of Russian history and culture. I am also grateful to my second reader, Professor Craig Hayden who introduced me to the communications literature that was central for this research project. And finally, this thesis is a result of my two-year studies at the American University’s School of International Service, which offered me a generous scholarship and provided an opportunity to study in its incredibly challenging and intellectually stimulating academic environment. My special and warmest regards go out to my family. This work would never have been written without the love, encouragement, and support of my husband, Nick, who also helped in editing and proofreading this manuscript. He was also the one who had to put up with me spending an extraordinary amount of time, including weekends and holidays, in front of the computer, but who remained ever supportive and encouraging of my endeavor, particularly at the times when work faltered. My parents and their emotional support and trust in me have always been my main reason to move forward. iii TABLE OF CONTENTS ABSTRACT………………………………………………………………………………………ii ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS………………………………………………………………………iii LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS……………………………………………………………………..vi Chapter 1: THEORETICAL FRAMEWORK…………………………………………………….1 The Public Sphere Theory Revisited…………………………………………………9 Power, Networks, and the Networked Public Sphere………………………………...16 The Internet in Russia: The Highlights……………………………………………...22 A Word on Technology and Social Transformation………………………………….25 Chapter Outline……………………………………………………………………27 Chapter 2: MASS COMMUNICATION AND THE NEW MEDIA AGE…………………..….28 The Information Age and Transformation of the Mass Media………………………..28 Commercial Mass Media and the Politics of Publicity……………………………….34 The “Second Media Age”: the Internet……………………………………………..49 The Internet, Self-Expressive Politics, and Political Activism………………………..59 Chapter 3: RUSSIAN POLITICS AND MEDIA………………………………………………..65 The Internet in Russia and Dynamics of the Political Process………………………..79 Chapter 4: METHODOLOGY…………………………………………………………………...92 Chapter 5: THE ALTERNATIVE INFORMATION ENVIRONMENT, AND CULTURAL AND COMMUNICATIVE SPACE………………………………………………..102 Liberal-Networked Public Sphere…………………………………………………103 The Return of Political Satire and Self-Expressive Politics………….………………105 Mocking State-Controlled News: Production of Video Content……………………..117 Kremlin Intervenes: Internet Controls.……………………….……………………129 Growing Gap Between Official and Popular Discourses……....……………………139 iv Chapter 6: BOTTOM-UP AGENDA SETTING AND ENHANCED INDIVIDUAL AUTONOMY………………………………………………………………………146 Alexei Navalny’s Online Community as a Communication Hub……………………146 The Blogosphere and the Liberal Media: Co-production of Alternative Meanings………………………………………………………………………...148 The Blogosphere and the Liberal Media: Bottom-up Agenda-Setting………………..161 Music Competition as an Example of the Enhanced Individual Autonomy of Musicians………………………………………………..171 Chapter 7: THE LIBERAL-NETWORKED PUBLIC SPHERE AND SOCIAL MOBILIZATION…………………………………………………………………..182 Media Scandals, Building Social Tension………………………………………….183 The Logic of Social Mobilization…………………………………………………195 Volunteer Observing of the Elections…………………………………………......204 Chapter 8: CONCLUSION………………………………………………….………………….214 Communication Technologies and Social Mobilization……….……………………215 After the Protests: Some Implications……………………………………………..224 Theoretical Findings and Significance……………………………………………..234 Political Significance of Public Contestation………………………………………244 APPENDICES………………………………………………………………………………….253 SELECTED BIBLIOGRAPHY………………………………………………………………..269 v LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS Figure 1. Which sources do you use most often for news and information? ................................... 71 2. The dynamics of citing blogosphere materials in the mainstream media ......................... 86 3. The biggest events of the Russian blogosphere in 2011 covered by traditional media .... 88 4. Activists from the Blue Buckets movement, symbolic forms of protest .......................... 89 5. Protest banners .................................................................................................................. 91 6. Words of 2011................................................................................................................... 95 7. Political satire on the internet ......................................................................................... 110 8. Political Demotivators .................................................................................................... 111 9. Demotivators reflecting popular attitudes toward the members of the tandem………...112 10. YouTube political animations and satire ......................................................................... 113 11. Channel One, “Cartoon Personalities” ............................................................................ 115 12. Demotivators mocking state-controlled TV.................................................................... 118 13. Video blogs parodying state-controlled TV news .......................................................... 119 14. The Citizen Poet team ..................................................................................................... 121 15. Citizen Poet ..................................................................................................................... 122 16. Vladimir Putin’s PR campaign ....................................................................................... 131 17. YouTube video: “Putin’s Army Defeated” ...................................................................... 132 18. An excerpt from an interview with Dmitry Peskov, Putin’s press secretary .................. 140 19. Posters and costumes from the Russian protests of 2011-2012 ...................................... 145 20. Search results for Edinaia Rossiia (United Russia) as they appeared in 2013 on two of the most popular search engines in Russia. ...................................................................................... 153 21. Journalists observing the Navalny-Fedorov debate on Finam FM ................................. 154 vi 22. The original poster produced by the blogger, redstarcreative. ....................................... 160 23. Protesters in Moscow holding posters created by Alexei Navalny’s readers ................. 161 24. Fluid new media communications .................................................................................. 163 25. A Poster from Navalny’s competition spreads online .................................................... 165 26. A political campaign that used “the party of crooks and thieves” slogan, Orenburg ..... 166 27. United Russia’s attempts to counter the slogan “the party of crooks and thieves” promoted in the liberal-networked public sphere ....................................................................... 169 28. Participants in the singing contest announced by Alexei Navalny on his LiveJournal blog ......................................................................................................................... 174 29. Frames from the music video by Rabfaq, “Our Madhouse Votes for Putin” ................. 175 30. Artwork by Andrey Budaev that satirizes the Russian artistic elite ............................... 176 31. The civic activism of Artemy Troitsky and