Natalya Ryabinska - New media and democracy in post-Soviet countries
As the use of the Internet in the post-Soviet space continues to evolve, Natalya Ryabinska shows how tools of control, surveillance and propaganda are more than up to the task of hindering online sources that promote democratization. Once again, the fate of civil society hangs in the balance.
The Arab revolutions in 2011-2012, in which new technology played an important part in mobilizing protests, led scientists to again talk about the liberalizing potential of the Internet, and its increased role in the democratization of countries characterized by semi-democratic or authoritarian transitional regimes. This idea has its own ardent supporters (such as Ronda Hauben and Peter Golding) as well as opponents (or at least sceptics). For example, in his outstanding book The Net Delusion: The Dark Side of Internet Freedom, Evgeny Morozov shows that the Internet can be successfully used not for political liberalization but rather for sustaining authoritarian regimes in post-Soviet states. Clearly, this vast debate is far from being over but the existing literature allows us to assume that the Internet can produce different policy outcomes in different environments. Therefore, instead of looking for the answer to questions such as "How does the Internet change closed societies?", we should try to understand how the Internet influences politics and society in particular countries during a particular period of time.
Understanding the weaknesses of trying to speak about the entire region, rather than individual countries, even if it is bound by recent common history of being part of one state, I will try to highlight issues which deserve attention, and provide an outline of the current situation in the post-Soviet (non-Baltic) States.
http://www.eurozine.com/articles/2013-10-09-ryabinska-en.html
The Arab revolutions in 2011-2012, in which new technology played an important part in mobilizing protests, led scientists to again talk about the liberalizing potential of the Internet, and its increased role in the democratization of countries characterized by semi-democratic or authoritarian transitional regimes. This idea has its own ardent supporters (such as Ronda Hauben and Peter Golding) as well as opponents (or at least sceptics). For example, in his outstanding book The Net Delusion: The Dark Side of Internet Freedom, Evgeny Morozov shows that the Internet can be successfully used not for political liberalization but rather for sustaining authoritarian regimes in post-Soviet states. Clearly, this vast debate is far from being over but the existing literature allows us to assume that the Internet can produce different policy outcomes in different environments. Therefore, instead of looking for the answer to questions such as "How does the Internet change closed societies?", we should try to understand how the Internet influences politics and society in particular countries during a particular period of time.
Understanding the weaknesses of trying to speak about the entire region, rather than individual countries, even if it is bound by recent common history of being part of one state, I will try to highlight issues which deserve attention, and provide an outline of the current situation in the post-Soviet (non-Baltic) States.
Partly free
The Internet has entered the reality of post-Soviet societies very quickly. Internet penetration in the post-Soviet states is quite high: according to the International Telecommunication Union, the percentage of individuals using the Internet in 2012 was 54.2 per cent in Azerbaijan, 53.27 per cent in Russia and 45.5 per cent in Georgia (see graph). This is comparable, for example, to France (47.93) or Spain (50.37) in 2006. On the other hand, this penetration is uneven as access to the Internet remains problematic for a significant part of society in the post-Soviet states due to technological or economic reasons. In Russia, the size of the community in which a person lives is still one of the main differentiating factors for Internet usage: Muscovites are 3.6 times more likely to use the Internet than rural inhabitants. In Azerbaijan, users complain of low speed access to the Internet in some regions. And in Uzbekistan, the price for Internet access remains beyond the reach of large segments of the population... read more:http://www.eurozine.com/articles/2013-10-09-ryabinska-en.html
