The internet has great effect on politics all around the world, including in Russia. New words and slogans have formed from the internet with the huge growth of bloggers and online journalists. The contexts such as “cyber-pessimists” and “cyber-optimism” are a good example. Some say that Russian politicians have joined the “cyber-optimist” side. Also according to Alexey Cahaev, leading ideologist of the ruling party “United Russia”, Internet Democracy is the next step of evolution of democratic institutions.
“Chadaev proposes electronic voting for the next Duma election in 2011, electronic evaluation of officials' performance, as well as battling the digital divide, the development of open software, VOIP services and de-monopolization of online products. None of the initiatives he proposes, however, provide for the creation of sustainable political institutions for citizens.”
“Russian officials were using online tools like Twitter to demonstrate they were close to the people on a personal level, while at the same time avoiding real political change. NGOs and journalists are harassed and threatened, but at least everyone can blog about it. Internet activism, Allnutt writes, is permitted by authoritarian regimes like Russia as long as it serves as a pressure valve for the opposition to let off steam.”
There are also plenty of sites which specialise in Russian anekdoti, Russian jokes, aswell as dirt on the rich and famous among many other things. President Vladimir Putin was quick to grasp the web´s potential and made a stylish campaign website for the March presidential election. During his spell as Prime Minister there was published government news on the government site. It was also on this site that Putin chose to unveik his first “quasi-manifesto, saying notably that great powers should not to be measured in numbers of tanks, but in their ability to create and use advanced technology.”
The second Chechen war, which was launched in 1999 and made Mr Putin's domestic reputation, has in fact been fought both with tanks and technology.
Links:
http://globalvoicesonline.org/2010/11/30/russia-competing-models-of-internet-politics/
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/europe/1198603.stm
Lilja
Very interesting.
ReplyDeleteWe tend to presume that the internet is a good thing democratically speaking - even whilst we are all aware of some of the ways it can be abused as well. But this kind of institutional abuse of the internet's information profile, not to mention the sophistication of the approach, really illustrates the potentially huge pitfalls to our reliance and trust in the wonder of the whole thing.