Mobilization Of Political Protest In The Russian Segment Of Social Media (2021): Triggers, Audience, Communication Channels

Abstract

The article presents the results of applied political research, the purpose of which is to determine the scale, mobilization potential, social base, and digital communication technologies of protest-oriented information flow in the Russian segment of social media on the eve of the Single Voting Day of 2021. The cognitive mapping implemented in the study made it possible to identify the meaningful characteristics of the information flow. The social media analysis made it possible to determine the dynamic and structural characteristics of the information flow, the gender and age specifics of the users involved in it, as well as quantitative characteristics of the activity of key communities forming protest information flows. The method of social graphs revealed the structure of interaction between the opposition and protest communities of Telegram in 2021. The event analysis carried out during the study made it possible to fix the key peaks of growth in the dynamics of user activity around protest events and discourses. On this basis, it was possible to identify the triggers used to involve users in protest information flows (elections, law enforcement agencies, vaccination, socio-economic problems), typologize the communities forming the protest information flow (protest aggregator communities, news aggregator communities, local analytics communities), and model of mass protest mobilization (primary trigger — secondary trigger — offline protest).