Why do bloggers keep silent?

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By: Alesia Rudnik

Supervisor: Liudmila Voronova

Södertörn University | School of Social Sciences Master’s thesis 15 credits

Journalism | 2 semester 2020

Why do bloggers keep silent?

Self-censorship in social media: cases of Belarus

and Russia

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Abstract

Social media are often referred to as democracy drivers in autocratic states, whereas in some countries, they appear as tools of the regimes that employ a wide range of mechanisms to restrict freedom of expression online. In authoritarian countries, political bloggers stand out as new political leaders or anti-regime actors, serve as alternative information sources, advocate for political action, or mobilize financial support for different initiatives. Political conditions in countries with es- tablished governments’ control practices complicate publishing routines for political bloggers and may increase incentives to self-censor. Employing the theory of the spiral of silence, this study analyzes self-censorship in social media among political bloggers in two neighboring post-Soviet autocratic countries - Belarus and Russia. The research is based on a comparison of media legislation in Belarus and Russia, textual analysis of political blogs, and survey among political bloggers in the two countries. The survey demonstrates that political bloggers face obstacles in forms of administrative or criminal sentences, forceful blocking of their pages, online threats, or experience pressure/

attention from secret services. Despite these challenges, political bloggers in Belarus and Russia demonstrate readiness to speak out and criticize political elites. According to the model suggested in this thesis, the majority of political bloggers practice self-censorship at the pre-publishing stages in forms of selecting topics and wording, avoiding particular names. The author argues that in autocratic countries, the spiral of silence, that engages more people to silence their opinion due to political obstacles, can be and is currently challenged by political bloggers, as decentralized political opinion leaders, who aim to break down the spiral of silence. The research contributes to media studies of social media and freedom of expression in autocratic countries. Political bloggers as neither ordinary social media users or media in non-democratic world require more attention among media and political scholars.

Acknowledgments:

I would like to express sincere gratitude to my supervisor, Liudmila Voronova, who positively impacted this research by academic advise and strong personal support. Her willingness to carefully scrutinize the material and patience in responding to all questions created a plausible working at- mosphere. I wish to thank all the survey participants who, despite their hectic and stressful lives, found time to both fill in the questionnaire and contribute by broadening the survey sample.

Key Words: authoritarian regimes, Belarus, censorship, political bloggers, freedom of speech, Russia, self-censorship, social media.

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List of figures and tables

Figure 1. Internet control tactics in CIS countries (Deibert and Rohozinski, 2010) 14

Figure 2. Spiral of Silence 15

Figure 3. Political regimes in Belarus, Moldova, Russia and Ukraine (Way, 2005, p.247). 19

Table 1. Belarus and Russia in the international ratings 21

Table 2. legislative regulations concerning online media in Belarus and Russia 32

Table 3. Illustrating the approach to textual analysis 35

Figure 4. Have you faced any problems due to your social media publications? (N=61) 37

Figure 5. Self-censorship in Belarus and Russia (N=61) 38

Figure 6. Three stages of self-censorship 43

Figure 7. Spiral of Silence in social media in autocracies 45 Figure 8. Topics covered by political bloggers in Belarus 70

Figure 9. Topics covered by political bloggers in Russia 70

Figure 10. Topics covered by political bloggers in Belarus and Russia 70

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Introduction

In February 2020, Russian blogger Tumso Abdurakhmanov, who openly criticized the Chec- nya’s president Ramzan Kadyrov, was attacked in the town of Gävle, Sweden, where he resided after escaping the republic (The Moscow Times, 2020). In December 2019, a 21-year-old Russian blogger Yegor Zhukov was freed from jail where he had spent several months for calling to participate in anti-governmental protests via his YouTube channel in August the same year (The Moscow Times, 2019). Two years earlier in Belarus a criminal case was opened against another blogger, now Poland-based 19-year-old Stsiapan Sviatlou (known as NEXTA). This became a result of his publications critical towards the Belarusian authorities, including president Alyaksandr Lukashenka (Spring96, 2018). Zmicer Kazlou, another blogger from Belarus, received 120 days of criminal sen- tence for mobilizing his readers for a street protest against the authorities' foreign policy in Decem- ber 2019 (Spring96, 2020).

Each of the named bloggers produced different type of political content, but all share a similar feature – they express opinion critical towards authorities in their countries. In this thesis, I refer to such content producers as political bloggers. According to McKenna&Pole (2008), political bloggers are political content producers who publish information, opinions, and encourage to take part in political events or charity projects. The thesis places in focus those who critically speak up against political regimes in Belarus and Russia by sharing political information and opinions on their social media pages . ¹

Due to cheap and quick access to the internet, citizens of authoritarian countries receive more opportunities to consume news through sources alternative to traditional state-owned and/or state- controlled channels such as TV and print media. However, social media, widely utilized for surveillance and control over oppositional groups and individuals, can also bring a threat to citizens in non-democracies (Schlozman et al., 2010). With authoritarian governments employing technological development for their benefit, there is a risk of regime consolidation, a proliferation of surveillance by governments, as well as a crackdown on dissidents. In that sense, political bloggers in authoritarian states become exposed to pressure for their online activism. At the same time, autocrats strive for securing the status-quo, and in an attempt to create a more democratic international

Belarus and Russia are classified as countries with authoritarian political regimes (Way, 2005), or

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as electoral autocracies (Lührmann, et al., 2020).

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image, autocratic regimes intend to avoid arresting everyone who is critically reporting about the government (Soest & Grauvogel, 2017).

Instead of detaining every dissident, autocrats attempt to use other means to control freedom of expression in social media, such as legal restrictions (Al-Saqaf, 2014). In 2018, the Belarusian parliament passed the law that obliges online media editions (newspapers and magazines) to intro- duce identification of readers willing to comment on an article (government.by, 2018). Similarly, Russian authorities regulate content online, while security services can access personal data of the users of the popular social networks (The Criminal Code of the Russian Federation, 1996, 2014).

Belarusian and Russian governments impose criminal and administrative charges not only on journalists formally affiliated with a newsroom but also on individuals publishing undesirable polit- ical content. In Russia, 875 court cases for reposts, online publications, and comments in social media were reported between 2014 and 2019 (BlackScreen.Report, 2019). Authoritarian governments often classify political bloggers as journalists in order to limit access of the latter to broader audience. In 2014, Russian parliament passed the so-called blogger law (Federal Law No. 97-FZ ) that requires social media users with more than 3000 visits per day to register as media. It allowed for prosecution of political bloggers under the media laws (Reporters Without Borders, 2019).

Legal limits and repressive practices towards those expressing political views online make them adapt publishing routines to the existing media system. For example, to minimize risks of offline repressions, political bloggers may opt to limit and self-censor their content published online.

International human rights reports often note that self-censorship becomes a result of government restrictions imposed on press and online media. "The government exerted pressure on the vast majority of independent publications to exercise self-censorship, warning them not to report on certain topics or criticize the government," highlights the US Department of State in a human rights report on Belarus (2019, p.11).

Self-censorship in this thesis is addressed as an act of refraining from expression in forms of

"decreasing and limiting expressive behaviors" and demonstrating "withdrawal behaviors (deleting, editing, untagging)" (Chen, 2018, p.3921).

Political bloggers' capacity to cover broad audience without any formal affiliation with media outlets and their open criticism towards authorities in the social media placed these individuals into focus of secret services and authorities in many autocratic states. An increased number of criminal and administrative sentences against bloggers have a significant impact on freedom of expression on the internet (Freedom House, 2020). To summarize, previous research and reports indicate that

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those who avoid expressing criticism often end up silencing their opinion, limiting their expressive behaviors, or stop blogging.

This thesis aims to a) identify how political bloggers perceive and motivate self-censorship they practice in authoritarian countries (focusing on examples of Belarus and Russia); b) explain self-censorship's impact on freedom of expression in the two states based on the analyzed materials.

Further, the study seeks to fill a gap in studies of self-censorship of political bloggers in autocracies, explaining the phenomena with help of the theory of the spiral of silence. The study is based on analysis of media legislation, textual analysis of political blogs in Russia and Belarus, and an anonymous survey answered by bloggers from Belarus and Russia. Researching self-censorship allows for finding new explanations for how an authoritarian environment affects freedom of expression in a digitalizing world.

There are three research questions answered in the thesis:

1. What factors influence self-censorship among political bloggers in Belarus and Rus- sia?

2. How do political bloggers in Belarus and Russia perceive and describe self-censor- ship?

3. How does self-censorship impact freedom of expression in Belarus and Russia?

The theoretical chapter (chapter I) establishes theoretical framework and presents a literature review on web 2.0. in autocracies and self-censorship in social media.The methodology chapter (chapter II) explains a research approach and methods applied for collecting and analyzing empirical data. Chapter III presents the results of the conducted survey, analysis of the media regulation of the two countries, and a textual analysis of ten political blogs in Belarus and Russia. Finally, chapter IV discusses the results in relation to previous research and the theory of the spiral of silence. Sug- gestions on ideas for future research finalize the thesis.

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I. Theoretical framework and literature review

This chapter discusses the specifics of the internet and web 2.0. in authoritarian countries explained by political and media scholars. Sub-chapter 1.1. focuses on examining whether bloggers shall be treated as journalists and peculiarity of the bloggers’ political function in authoritarian regimes. In the second section, I present an overview of research on self-censorship and discuss theory of spiral of silence that will later be applied for describing and explaining the phenomena of self-censorship among bloggers. Descriptions of political context and media landscape of Belarus and Russia conclude the chapter.

1.1. Political discussion in social media: new media - new journalists

“Are bloggers journalists?

Journalists: no way. Bloggers: no thanks” (Singer, 2006, p.23).

With a growing role of the internet and especially social media, many traditional media shifted online. Digitalization of the press impacted journalistic profession, making anyone possessing information and internet access to be able to provide the public with exclusive news (Kovach &

Rosenstiel, 2001). Former monopoly on publishing unique content had been shared among all with bloggers (Kapustina, 2015).

In Wiley Online Library, blogs are referred to as “online publications that include individual messages (“posts”) arranged in reverse chronological order and on which readers are usually allowed to comment” (Wiley Online Library, 2015). Among the full range of thematic blogs, there are political blogs that “are relevant in two domains: the flow of political information and the promotion and organization of political action”. Davis (2009, p.3) defines political blogs as “online journals that discuss politics.”

However, there seems to be a lack of agreement between media scholars on how political bloggers are defined. Political bloggers have been addressed as new journalists, bloggers, activists, citizen journalists or alternative journalists (Atton, 2009); as micro-celebrity activists, who are motivated by politics and advocate their position through the social media (Tufekci, 2013); or as online public intellectuals that present their political views through the digital media (Dahlgren, 2013).

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Despite the lack of agreement on the definition of political content producers among scholars and those individuals' perception of themselves, - political role of these people is rather significant, especially in authoritarian states (Morozov, 2007). Blogs have a function of assisting their readers to understand their daily life in a specific context; blogs' audience appears often more politically engaged than the consumers of traditional media (Zelizer, 2009).

The study based on the survey in the US suggests that there are four main functions per- formed by political bloggers: informational, watchdogs of the traditional media, political advocacy and charity promotion (McKenna&Pole, 2008). The authors claim that even though bloggers might not possess enough resources for performing journalists' work, they proved to become a reliable source of firsthand information. 90% of the bloggers, according to the study, encourage their audience to take part in political activities, such as elections or demonstrations, while 44% often call on to donate for charity initiatives (McKenna&Pole, 2008).

Political bloggers are influential not only because of the functions mentioned above but also because their audience consists of traditional journalists, politicians, and opinion leaders

(Tomaszeski et al., 2009). Thus, political leaders might turn to political bloggers for lobbying and influencing political agenda (Farell&Drezner, 2008).

In authoritarian states, bloggers often appear as a source of alternative information for the audience that has a lower trust in official newspapers and television (Kovach & Rosenstiel, 2001).

Bode&Makarychev (2014) argue that in contemporary Russia “there is simply no other way to increase public visibility of such issues as electoral fraud, government malpractice, and corruption than through the new social media” (Bode&Makarychev, 2014, p.54).

Russian media scholar Ivan Zassoursky (2004) expresses that in Russia, internet allows for forming groups of watchdogs that both control the traditional media and the political regime to which these media formally or informally belong. During the forest fires in central Russia, bloggers united and provided technical assistance to fire firms and participated in stopping the fires themselves – thus bloggers often become “moral authorities” (Bode&Makarychev, 2014, p.58).

Political bloggers identify everyday problems: corruption, environment, healthcare, - and of- fer solutions to them. Additionally, they rely on a society with low education and experience of active civic participation, and their rights’ protection - they share ideas, show examples, explain phenomena (Bode&Makarychev, 2014). In that way political bloggers can often take a role of educators.

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Using new media such as Facebook and Twitter, bloggers are also able to take a role of political educators that allows for increasing political engagement in autocratic countries (Diamond, 2010). Precisely these two social media appeared to host a significant share of oppositions' political content in authoritarian Russia, compared to the other social networks, such as Vkontakte or

Odnoklassniki (Reuter, Szakonyj, 2015). The authors argue that the opposition groups politicized Facebook and Twitter and that the usage of these networks impacted awareness on the election fraud in the regions with relatively high freedom of the press (Reuter, Szakonyj, 2015).

Bodrunova&Litvinenko (2016) claim that social media and blogging in such counties as Rus- sia brought a change to the media system. Media hybridization, as the authors address it, implies

“not only tech-based changes in the structure of media systems and growth of online segments but also numerous social and political consequences of these technological advances” that include increased participation in political discussion and “formation of online pressure groups and the growth of political movements” (Bodrunova&Litvinenko, 2016, p. 114).

The changes in the media systems due to technological development have also challenged the essence of journalistic profession creating blurred boundaries between traditional journalists and bloggers. Many scholars agree that journalists and bloggers are not synonyms. Journalists that serve public by providing quick facts and qualitative information are most of the time different from the bloggers who approach their social media posts as fun, and "enhancing democracy is not high on their agenda" (Singer, 2006, p.1). However, there are those bloggers who become a source of prima- ry information, and in that sense, they take on a journalistic role. Singer believes that bloggers have a different understanding of truth when they collect information and present it to the broader audience that can decide whether to consume this information, while sometimes bloggers take on the more prominent journalistic role when they, for instance, get accreditation to cover certain events.

Blogging is often associated with different practices - observing, collecting information from in- formants, commenting, expressing an opinion, and sharing others' opinions (Atton, 2009).

The perception of their role by bloggers themselves might vary. Although bloggers can perform the journalistic function by providing the public with facts and stories, political bloggers often refuse to be named journalists. Fulton (2015) conducted interviews with “media entrepreneurs” to find out whether the perception of journalism by traditional journalists and bloggers differs. The author concluded that even if bloggers perform a journalist's function, they might not agree to label themselves as journalists.

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Even if bloggers do not belong to the newsroom and have no formal education in journalism, bloggers that Singer (2006) refers to, become a source of unique information and sometimes add value to the content produced by a traditional journalist. Defining bloggers and journalists sometimes might have more than professional and academic importance. For instance, there is a clear need to distinguish the two roles when it comes to court cases and the protection of information sources (Docter, 2010). In authoritarian countries bloggers can often face legal limitations and restrictions being classified as journalists by laws. I will get back to the problematization of how media laws in Belarus and Russia apply to bloggers and journalists in the chapter III, but first let me establish the definition of the political blogger to be used in this thesis.

Based on the scholarship that addressed political bloggers (even though scholars have applied different terms to characterize the same group of people) and authoritarian context where these bloggers operate, I suggest defining political bloggers as individuals or group of individuals that facilitate political discussion on the internet by a) informing the audience, sharing political opin- ions, or/and b) serving as watchdogs of ruling elites and pro-governmental media, or/and c) advo- cating on political matters, or/and d) political charity promotion. In the methodology chapter, I present detailed approach for selecting political blogs for a thematic analysis and political bloggers for the survey. Before that, let us take a look at the authoritarian environment where these political bloggers operate.

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1.2. Web 2.0. in authoritarian states

Politics in the world is becoming more accessible due to the digitalization of journalism and the development of social media (McNair, 2009). Internet that allowed for the development of web 2.0 in the last decades has become an essential part of protests, especially in authoritarian countries (Sandoval-Almazan et al., 2014). When the wave of color revolutions covered post-Soviet countries, social media became a mobilizing platform and source of information; and authoritarian regimes were believed to have less control over online media in comparison to print press

(Kalathil&Boas, 2001). As Diamond addresses it, liberation technology, allows for expanding “po- litical, social and economic freedom” (Diamond, 2010, p.70).

Groshek (2009) attempted to find a correlation between democratization (based on the four indicators of the Polity IV database) and the internet usage by conducting a quantitative study in ² 152 countries. The results indicated that Internet diffusion had become an essential component of democratization but not the only decisive factor. Semi-democratic regimes are believed to have more chances to enjoy the internet as a liberating instrument on the democratization path (Groshek, 2009).

Although in the countries where social media appear as a platform for democratic forces, democratization is more likely to happen, democratic development rather depends on the whole range of other factors. Based on the field experiment in Tanzania during the presidential election in 2010, Bailard states that although Facebook users tend to criticize government more, it does not necessarily lead to tangible political actions (Bailard, 2012).

Vital Silitski (2005) suggested that authoritarian regimes of the countries of the former Soviet Union are taking preemptive measures, and thus their political regime can be named preemptive au- thoritarianism. "<...> hard-line authoritarian regimes ensure their continued stability and survival not just by sporadic reactions to already existing political and social challenges, but by preemptive attacks that eliminate threats before they arise”, writes Silitski (p. 84). According to Silitski, authoritarian regimes aim to restrict dissidents when they have not yet reached the stage of organized democratic force that can threaten the government's status quo. Preemption covers civil society organizations, election procedures, opposition, and independent media. The author distinguished three types of preemption: tactical (targeting opposition and civil society activists), institutional (creating

Polity IV indicators are: “competitiveness of political participation, the regulation of participation, the openness and

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competitiveness of executive recruitment and constraints on the chief executive” (Groshek, 2009, p.121)

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institutional restrictions for yet weak democratic actors), and cultural preemption (propaganda ori- ented at supporting regime's political course or creating a negative image of opposition).

Larry Diamond believes that indeed authoritarian states put effort in limiting different spheres of life. His concept of liberation technology works differently in some authoritarian states. Dia- mond notes: “Authoritarian states such as China, Belarus, and Iran have acquired (and shared) im- pressive technical capabilities to filter and control the Internet, and to identify and punish dis- senters” (Diamond, 2010, p.70).

MacKinnon (2011) introduces a concept similar to Diamond’s but goes further and considers the role of technologies and digital development in restricting democratic forces within the authori- tarian context. Networked authoritarianism refers to the process when authoritarian states develop strategies of utilizing technological developments for maintaining the regime's status quo (MacKin- non, 2011).

Similarly, Morozov (2011) argued that romanticizing the Internet as a liberation instrument in contemporary authoritarian regimes is somewhat naive. Al-Saqaf (2014) follows this argument and claims that authoritarian states choose to employ censorship "to maintain the upper hand in controlling the flow of information and to minimize the capacity of dissidents and activists to undermine the state's authority" (p.45).

Censorship of social media in a non-democratic environment can be explained through the typology of preemption (Silitski, 2005), as both tactical and institutional preemption. The tactical preemption happens when the regimes track, filter, and/or block accounts of the dissidents before they manage to accumulate protest force through social media. In China, the internet filtering and surveillance help authorities to decrease the influence of alternative opinions before they become popular (Shirk, 2011). Surveillance in authoritarian states is often used for monitoring information about the regime's opponents in order to employ oppression against them (Gohdes, 2014), whereas institutional preemption can imply harsher methods on restricting online space by media legislation.

Besides restricting possibilities for the opposition and pro-democratic forces, some authoritarian regimes learned using the internet in their favor. Morozov (2011) analyzed how the governments in China, Iran, and Russia used technological development to increase the regime's support and oppressing the influence of alternative groups. He believes that the internet can empower authoritarian regimes more than democratic forces as the first possess more resources and power to control to oppress the latter (Morozov, 2011).

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Scholars also pointed out the tendency to controversial social media effect when social activism aims at shifting offline when possible (Mehrabov, 2017). Authoritarian regimes put effort in restricting freedom of expression of social media activists in a sophisticated way, Mehrabov claims (2017). The figure below gives an example of Internet control tactics in CIS countries by Open Net Initiative in 2007-2008 (Deibert & Rohozinski, 2010, p.23).

FIGURE 1. INTERNET CONTROL TACTICS IN CIS COUNTRIES (DEIBERT AND RO³ - HOZINSKI, 2010)

The scholarship provides a range of those sophisticated social media management strategies employed by the Chinese government. Thus, Li, Lee & Li (2016) conclude that, to prevent the democratization of a country, authoritarian states undergo the three main stages of Internet control.

The first stage relates to filtering and censoring the Internet by any means, including the hack methods. The second implies the legal obstacles for freedom of speech on the internet and trying to establish legitimized informational control. The last stage described in the research refers to the authoritarian regimes trying to enter online space with proactive measures, for instance, paid government campaigns online. In some autocracies, authorities manage to force social media platforms to moderate their content. As an example, 16% of posts (out of 1,3 million posts in a random sample) in Chinese Weibo were deleted by the network owners (Bamman et al., 2012).

Deibert, R., and Rohozinski, R., 2010. Control and Subversion in Russian Cyberspace, <https://techliberation.com/

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wp-content/uploads/2010/06/chapter-2.pdf>

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1.3. Spiral of silence - do you dare?

Noelle-Neumann (1974) suggested an approach that explains individuals’ behaviors on opinion expression in a society. The concept of the spiral of silence has been widely used in political and communication studies. Neumann claimed that individuals tend to silence their opinion when they encounter a fear of social isolation (Neumann, 1974). Whenever one feels that the opinion is rather marginal compared to most society members, the chances are high that an individual will avoid expressing genuine view under the fear of social isolation. The author calls this phenomenon a spiral of silence (Neumann, 1974).

With increasing pressure on individuals who express radical opinions considered as unethical in certain community, a desire to express is decreasing as do the consequences of this expression.

Therefore, it becomes more challenging to express oneself on certain topics or in a certain way. The more people decide not to post unpopular opinion the less popular it becomes, resulting in those individuals who dare to speak being referred to as radicals. In this way, the spiral of silence, is unfold- ing and integrating more and more people (see Figure 2).

FIGURE 2. SPIRAL OF SILENCE ⁴

Noelle-Neumann E. (1974). The spiral of silence a theory of public opinion. Journal of Communication. 24 (2). pp.

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43–51. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1460-2466.1974.tb00367.x

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Chen (2018) applied the theory of the spiral of silence for analyzing self-censorship in social media in Hong Kong. The author defines self-censorship as refraining from expression and distin- guishes, "decreasing and limiting expressive behaviors” and demonstrating “withdrawal behaviors (deleting, editing, untagging)” (Chen, 2018). Self-censorship in forms of either expressive or with- drawal behaviors is primarily caused by the fear of being isolated in a network individual belongs to, claims Chen following Noelle-Neumann’s argument. The author analyzed self-censorship behav- ior during the 2016 election in Hong-Kong and concluded that despite anonymity provided by the social media, there is also a factor of publicness that in political matters may lead to higher levels of self-censorship.

Communication in social media allows for greater anonymity by engaging a significant number of anonymous users in a discussion. Nevertheless, it is also public as social media are character- ized by monitoring fellows online, quick reactions, and broader communication opportunities, as well as more significant influence of the groups and networks (Kwon et al., 2015). Kwon et al.

(2015) apply the argument of Neumann for social media and conclude that social media users in fear of social sanctions and disapproval stay away from expressing their position. By conducting a quantitative survey among social media users, Kwon et al. (2015) assume that social media put pressure on its users when it comes to expressing political opinions.

Horton (2011) explains the phenomenon of self-censorship as an everyday practice. "Self- censorship is a choice that is made by the self-censor not to express whatever is being self-

censored," claims Horton (p.97). Self-censorship is caused and affected by external factors such as political, social, and cultural environments and often arises from fear of the reaction of the readers.

However, as Horton highlights, it is an individual decision to self-censor. The author suggests dis- tinguishing self-censorship as a) self-restraint (an act of restraining oneself from an expression that is motivated by exclusively personal decision); and b) form of censorship (decision not to express oneself that is motivated by fear of threats or circumstances) (Horton, 2011).

Evaluating self-censorship can appear more challenging than finding an explanation of the phenomenon, as it is often an unconscious act that occurs in the social context (Parks, Mukherjee, 2017). Schimpfossl and Yablokov studied Russian journalists' self-censorship for understanding political motives behind it. They concluded that often journalists, TV-hosts understand what is allowed for public discussion in a current political situation. (Schimpfossl&Yablokov, 2014). Reporters in- terviewed by the authors claimed that "with regard to censorship one must not report negatively about Vladimir Putin" (Schimpfossl & Yablokov, 2014, p. 307). Respondents imposed self- restric-

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tions on the topics and people they covered - this led to a sophisticated scheme of "executing Krem- lin policies, without ever making this process too explicit" (Schimpfossl & Yablokov, 2014, p. 310).

The authors highlight that self-censorship decreases the quality of the journalistic product as it becomes less creative and realistic.

1.4. Political and media background

Political profile of independent Belarus and Russia

Belarus and the Russian Federation were the part of the Soviet Union that broke up in 1991.

In the early years of independence, both countries seemed to be developing in a democratic direc- tion. Countries began economic reforms, held democratic elections to parliament and local authorities, a multi-party system was quickly formed, restructuring of political elites occurred, and non- state media appeared. In 1994 Belarusians elected Alyaksandr Lukashenka as the president at the only free and fair election in the history of independent Belarus. From the very beginning of his rule, Lukashenka made a bid to return to the Soviet model of governance based on the hard-central- ized management of the economy and control over all spheres of life. Amid the background of a painful economic reform in the early 1990s the president's populist slogans allowed him to get quite serious support from the electorate (Way, 2005).

In 1996, a referendum initiated by Lukashenka took place, which nullified the term of Lukashenka's rule (the beginning of his cadence began in 1996), abolished the election of heads of local authorities (since that time, the heads of regions and cities are appointed personally by the president). After the referendum was not recognized by either OSCE or the EU (Bennett, 2011), Be- larus started to turn into the authoritarian state.

In neighboring Russia, after two Chechen wars, and amid painful economic reforms, democratic transformations have also begun to curtail from the second half of the 1990s. The authority of Russian President Boris Yeltsin was rapidly falling. Yeltsin faced the challenge of supporting the country’s economy and uniting political elites that appeared to be not loyal enough for consolidating the political regime (Way, 2005). Against this background, Alexander Lukashenka hoped to take the presidency of the new Union State of Belarus and Russia (Silitski, 2015).

This was one of the reasons why Lukashenka decided on signing the agreement on the Union State of Belarus and Russia in 1997 - a symbolic agreement that outlines the possibility of creating a single currency and parliament. For a long time, this document was purely symbolic, until in 2019

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when it was almost used by president Putin to force the Belarusian leader to work more closely with Russia and create a real Union state led by Vladimir Putin (Preiherman, 2020).

Putin that took over the power in Russia in 2000 stepped into the XXI century with increased oil and gas prices, a more robust economy, and more prominent support from the political elites. By this time, Belarusian president restricted possibilities of political and civic participation for the regime’s opponents (Rouda, 2009). Presidential candidates, journalists, political elites' representa- tives - at least five open critics of Lukashenka disappeared in the beginning of the 2000s, and the story behind their disappearance remains uncovered (Benett, 2011).

In 2004 Lukashenka conducted one more referendum putting down the restrictions on the term of the presidency through the constitutional reform (Rouda, 2009) - the step that Putin pre- pares to take only in 2020, while this thesis is being written.

While many post-Soviet countries experienced color revolutions, Belarusians attempted to organize an electoral protest under the name “Jeans Revolution” in 2006. The same attempt was made in Minsk in 2010. The outcome was 639 arrested protesters, including all oppositional candidates (Astapenia, 2013). A similar protest happened in Russia in 2011-2012, although on a much broader scale. Alexey Navalny - the famous Russian oppositional politician, who led the protests, was attacked, detained as well as many other protesters (Klyueva, 2016).

According to Way (2005), regime closure under Lukashenka and Putin happened due to several factors. Weak anti-incumbent and weak anti-Soviet national identity and civil society, an un- derdeveloped system of the rule of law, and strong leadership capacity of Lukashenka and Putin, as well as Russia’s growing economy in 2000s - became decisive factors in consolidating authoritarian regimes of Belarus and Russia (Way, 2005; see Figure 3).

Fifteen years after the publication of Way (2005), Belarus and Russia are still governed by Lukashenka and Putin and are still among the most stable electoral autocracies (Lührmann et al., 2020). The two political and media systems have long been classified as not free (Freedom House - Belarus, Freedom House - Russia, 2020). Election fraud and violation of political rights of political opponents of the regimes are combined with limited freedom of expression and freedom of speech (Freedom House - Belarus, Freedom House - Russia, 2020).

Belarus that became independent in 1991, has been going through the constant deterioration of human rights, especially press freedom. Control over the traditional media prevented many independent media from operating in the country since the 2000s: numerous printed media were closed and banned (Aliaksandrau, 2013). In the early 2000s, non-state media were seriously cleaned up in 18

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the country. They were forbidden to distribute newspapers through the state subscription system, to sell through the state distribution system, and to be printed in state printing houses. State-owned enterprises were prohibited from advertising in non-state media, which put the latter on the brink of survival. Only in 2020 some of the earlier closed media were permitted enter the state distribution system again (Aliaksandrau & Bastunets, 2020).

FIGURE 3. POLITICAL REGIMES IN BELARUS, MOLDOVA, RUSSIA AND UKRAINE (WAY, 2005, P.247).

Digitalization of journalism

As a result of increased pressure on the printed press, digitalization of the journalistic profession, and the development of web 2.0, the independent media sector in Belarus and Russia gradually shifted online. Social media have played a significant role in the protests in both Belarus and Russia consolidating and mobilizing protest participants in 2010, 2011-2012, and 2017 (Herasi- menka, 2017; Ilyuk, 2017; Klyueva, 2016). However, Belarusian and Russian civil societies had not enjoyed the freedom online. During the last decade, Russian and Belarusian governments invest in developing surveillance mechanisms and efforts on controlling political journalists offline and online and prosecuting them under the media law (Herasimenka, 2018; Aliaksandrau, 2013; Freedom House - Belarus, Freedom House - Russia, 2020; Reporters Without Borders, 2019).

Independent journalists are often forced to work without accreditation as the governments restrict possibilities for registering independent media in the countries and work for journalists of the foreign media that have not obtained accreditation. Some journalists or even the whole media agen- 19

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cies are fleeing the states.“<…> independent Russian outlets are increasingly publishing from abroad due to the repressive environment at home”, reads Freedom of the Net report (2018). For instance, one of the popular online media Meduza that covers Russia, emerged in Latvia for avoid- ing potential problems in the country. Similarly, TV channel Belsat, registered in Poland, offers broadcasting about Belarus. However, due to Belarusian authorities’ denial to register its office in Belarus, the media’s journalists are fined for working without accreditation in Belarus. As it reads on the homepage of Belsat , “$96,292 - we have been fined for our work” (Belsat.eu, n.d.). A simi- lar trend is topical for online content producers: Viachaslau Dzianisau, in 2010 the manager of

“Movement of the Future” group in the social network Vkontakte, had to flee Belarus (Aliaksan- drau, 2013). Russian blogger Sasha Sotnik has moved to Georgia after receiving numerous threats due to his posts critical towards Kremlin.

Since 2010, the amount of arrests of independent journalists has been gradually decreasing.

However, the number of repressions continued in the form of webpages being blocked, and the number of journalists receiving fines (Reportes Without Borders, 2018). Attacks on journalists, prosecution for working without accreditation, fines and criminal charges for covering protests - are just some forms of violation of freedom of expression. Freedom House gives an example of Russian journalist Ivan Golunov who was detained for allegedly possessing drugs but later freed under the pressure of society (Freedom House - Russia, 2019). Besides, Belarusian and Russian authorities practice forceful blocking of the webpages and personal accounts of independent media or political bloggers. As an example, the Belarusian Ministry of Information has blocked over 500 informational sources over three years (Freedom of the Net, 2018). It is combined with cyber-attacks against independent online media, as in the case of Nasha Niva, Onliner.by (BAJ, 2019) in Belarus or Dozhd, Kommersant, Echo Moskvy in Russia. Belarusian authorities have been limiting access to some websites of the independent media since long ago, such anti-governmental pages as Char- ter97 are still often unavailable in Belarus (Freedom of the Net, 2018).

The media monitoring conducted by Press Club Belarus concluded that most of the media in Belarus are loyal to the government or the president personally (Press Club Belarus, 2019). “Ac- cording to a Mediastandart Foundation study, 60 percent of Russian citizens and 81 percent of journalists think that Russian journalists are not free to report unbiased news but rather work in the in- terests of their bosses”, reports Media Sustainability Index (2019, p.6).

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TABLE 1. BELARUS AND RUSSIA IN THE INTERNATIONAL RATINGS

Internet and social media

Both countries have relatively high internet penetration rates - 74,4% in Belarus and 76% in Russia (Freedom of the Net, 2018). Internet popularity had also been growing very quickly in the 2010s. For example, according to Gemius reports the percentage of Belarusians using broadband had increased from 10% in 2010 to 70% in 2012 (Aliaksandrau, 2013). Internet has become the main source of news supply for the majority of the population in Russia after the protests in 2011-2012 (Bodrunova & Litvinenko, 2016).

Social media platforms in Belarus and Russia are numerous: Vkontakte, Odnoklassniki, Face- book, Instagram, Twitter, and Telegram. In Belarus, 40% of the population are active social media users, and the number is 48% for Russia (Datareportal.com). In both countries, Russian social media platform Vkontakte is the most popular among social media users at the age of 16-64 (datareportal.com, 2020; Eurasiaexpert, 2019).

"Social networks are also providing a significant challenge to the closed media environment in Belarus”, writes Aliaksandrau (2013, p. 8). Besides, social media have proved their importance for political events in Russia during the protests of 2011-2012. They contributed to the communication and mobilization of the oppositional groups (Klyueva, 2016). Facebook and Twitter have been politicized by Russia's opposition, as Reuter and Szakonyj (2015) show. Koltsova and Bodrunova (2019) state that Facebook in Russia is a niche social media mostly used by the politics interested users with oppositional views.

According to Freedom of the Net report (2018), users of the internet in Russia experienced difficulties with accessing such messenger apps as Telegram or Viber. Moreover, Telegram was ac- cused of providing a platform for terrorist-related content after it refused to share the encrypted data

Rating Belarus Russia

Reporters Without Borders, 2019, 180 countries measured 153 out of 180

149 out of 180

Freedom in the World (Freedom House, 2020), 100 countries measured

19 out of 100 20 out of 100

Internet Penetration (Freedom of the Net, 2018) 74.4% 76%

Media sustainability Index 0-4 (the higher - the better) 1,46 1,49

Population (CIA World Factbook, 2018) 9,527,543 142,122,776

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with the government in comparison to, for example, the largest social media platform Vkontakte (Freedom of the Net, 2018). Many Belarusian and Russian bloggers have thereafter opted to use Telegram after it refused to provide users' data as it became seen as a safe messenger. One of the Russian political bloggers with a nickname Stalingulag compared expressing a political opinion in Vkontakte to coming directly to the office of the Russia authorities, therefore he chose Telegram as a safe platform (BBC, 2019). In the analysis of Media in Belarus, Telegram is called the platform of the year (Aliaksandrau & Bastunets, 2020).

Blogosphere

Although enjoying a relative online freedom in 2010s, bloggers became the new targets of the regimes (Aleksandrov & Bastunets, 2020). In Belarus, blogger Stsiapan Sviatlou is currently under the criminal investigation for insulting the president in his videos, while Siarhei Piatruhin and Ali- aksandr Kabanau were fined for expressing their critical opinion towards the construction of the polluting factory in the town of Brest (Freedom of the Net, 2018). Seven years earlier, in July 2011, a freelance journalist Andrzej Poczobut was twice sentenced to three-years term in jail for libel against the president and producing “defamatory” articles for independent media online (Aliaksan- drau, 2013).

The so-called “Blogger Law” (Federal Law No. 97-FZ ) in Russia introduced in 2014 obliged content writers to register as media if they had more than 3000 visitors per day (Reporters Without Borders, 2019). The law is seen as limiting bloggers’ freedom of expression by revealing their personalities (Freedom of the Net, 2018). “Many of the limitations on free press are caused by censorship as well as self-censorship of media workers and other related actors. <…> This self-censorship is often caused by the fear of surveillance and persecution”, believes Herasimenka (2018, p.2). In this regard, it is possible to assume that some political bloggers and journalists tend to protect themselves online after facing administrative or criminal charges.

En example of leading a popular blog and staying safe is a blogger NEXTA that resides

abroad himself and ensures high sources protection. For several years now, dozens of pieces of local and regional news per day appear in the Telegram of the Belarusian blogger. The blogger created a secure channel where he gathers information from citizens in any part of Belarus and reports in his blog in Telegram that in June 2020 had almost 300 000 subscribers - one of the biggest personal blogs in Belarus (Telegram, NEXTA, n.d.). The blogger receives leaks from Ministry of Internal affairs, police, healthcare workers, teachers with numerous documents or news linked to the news or instances often absent from being reported on official TV.

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A Russian blogger nicknamed Stalingulag (1 million followers in Twitter and 388 000 subscribers on Telegram in April 2020) who had been anonymous for almost ten years for security reasons, provides readers with his political opinions, including in form of satire. Alexey Navalny is probably the most known Russian blogger who was able to convert his online support into street protest (Bode&Makarychev, 2014, p.58). Apart from providing personal political opinions, Navalny with his team conduct investigations in the field of corruption, for example “He is not Dimon for you” (2017) describes corruption surrounding the Russia’s former Prime-Minister Dmitry

Medvedev. Similarly, an investigative film on HIV situation in Russia was produced by the Russian Youtube blogger Yury Dud’ who raised criticism over the authorities’ approach to healthcare system in Russia.

These are just some examples of what bloggers in Belarus and Russia cover. In the section 4.2 I identify the most popular topics among ten political bloggers in Belarus and Russia in the period of two weeks. Before that, let me present the research design and main methods of the study.

1.5. Filling the research gap

Results of the preliminary literature review have shown that scholars focused on the discussion of the effects of social media in non-democratic context and analysis of restrictions for social media activists imposed by authoritarian regimes. However, there is a clear research gap in studies of self-censorship of political bloggers in the authoritarian context. While Chen (2018) applied the spiral of silence theory for analyzing self-censorship among individual users of social networks, Schimpfossl and Yablokov (2014) look at self-censorship among journalists, i.e., individuals who take decisions to self-censor being affiliated with a media outlet. Applying the theory of spiral of silence on political bloggers, is, therefore, novel in media studies.

Self-censorship in authoritarian states is an important aspect mentioned in the reports of international organizations. At the same time, self-censorship lacks academic discussion and empirical research, although it is continuously practiced by the content producers and social media users in these authoritarian countries (Herasimenka, 2018).

Belarus and Russia were chosen based on the author's academic interest, knowledge of the region, language skills, and an academic gap in media studies of the countries.

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II. Methodology

This chapter discusses research strategy and methods applied in this study. After presenting the research design in sub-chapter 2.1. I provide detailed description of data collection and processing.

2. 1. Research design

Self-censorship among political bloggers in Belarus and Russia lies in the focus of this thesis.

An empirical aim of the thesis is to a) identify how political bloggers perceive and motivate self- censorship, and whether they admit practicing it, and b) to explain self-censorship's impact on freedom of expression in Belarus and Russia.

There are three research questions formulated for this research:

1.What factors influence self-censorship among political bloggers in Belarus and Russia?

2. How do political bloggers in Belarus and Russia perceive and describe self-censorship?

3. How does self-censorship impact freedom of expression in Belarus and Russia?

In order to answer these three questions, the study first explores what political, media, and legal conditions shape the environment where Belarusian and Russian political bloggers operate (RQ1). It further analyzes how political bloggers assess their blogging practices in terms of expressive and withdrawal behaviors (Chen et al., 2016). This is done through web-survey among 61 political bloggers in Belarus and Russia. The bloggers were asked to fill in the questionnaire with closed and open questions, formulated for collecting data on self-censorship (RQ2). Finally, based on the survey results as well as the comparison of political, media, and legal environments in Russia and Belarus, I discuss what impact self-censorship among bloggers has on freedom of expression (RQ3).

Thus, this study combines qualitative methods such as analysis of political and media background, analysis of media laws, textual analysis of bloggers’ posts, and quantitative method - web- survey. Applying mixed methodology allows for providing greater validity to the research through cross-checking of the findings (Bryman, 2008). Mixed-method research requires the methods to complement each other despite the difference in their logic; it, therefore, means that “the quantitative and the qualitative data deriving from mixed methods research should be mutually illuminat- ing” (Bryman, 2008, p.628).

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Accessing self-censorship can appear rather challenging, providing reliability concerns in dis- cussing the abstract phenomenon. In order to provide more reliability to the research, three measures were taken.

Firstly, I relied on Chen’s (2016) operationalization of self-censorship, where the author suggests breaking down the concept into expressive behaviors that can be limited and withdrawal be- havior (editing and deleting the content).

Secondly, I formulated the survey questions in a way that respondents could reflect on their self-censorship practices and report on their strategies in different situations and in relation to various groups. For example, one of the survey questions asks: “To what extent can you criticize the following groups? (where “0 - is not at all” and “5 - as much as I want”): local authorities, president, businessmen, journalists, educational institutions, church, healthcare institutions”, etc. Such questions allow to place self-censorship on a relatively understandable scale and compare the responses. At the same time, instead of assuming some facts regarding political blogospheres, some questions were left open for respondents (see Appendix I).

Finally, for ensuring reliability, I transparently present the findings as the bloggers’ own assessment of self-censorship practices, rather than making assessments myself. My role is to track associations that emerge between certain variables of the research and to discuss how self-censorship affects freedom of expression.

2.2. Analysis of media legislation

There are different approaches to assess legislative acts. Media and internet laws in Belarus and Russia are partly described by international human rights reports. However, I am interested in mapping out specific legislative acts that impact the restriction of freedom of expression in these countries concerning bloggers. Therefore, following Sherstoboeva (2014), I focused specifically on three aspects of these laws: a) whether online media, traditional media and bloggers referred differently, b) what the bodies responsible for online media control are, and c) what restrictions the law implies. The laws were analyzed in their original versions, available in the Russian language at the governments’ webpages. Firstly, I read the laws and identified what definitions are used for ad- dressing online media and bloggers. Secondly, I compared the state bodies executing sanctions for violating the media laws. Finally, I mapped out the media legislation in Belarus and Russia and present a discussion on how these acts impact freedom of expression for media and bloggers.

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2.3. Textual analysis

For conducting the textual analysis, I aimed to review twenty political blogs on different social media platforms. As the second step, the timeframe had to be chosen. The selection was motivated by the context in which this thesis is being written. The COVID19 is already a recognized pandemic - the topic that has dominated media coverage and social media discussions in the world, including Belarus and Russia. In early February neither Belarus nor Russia were facing the pandem- ic on the large scale, meaning the bloggers’ posts had supposedly not been deviating from usual/

normal/non-crisis ones. Thus, I selected the timeframe of 1-15 February 2020, that reduced the number of messages about coronavirus to minimal and allowed for recording the picture of the

“normal”/non-crisis blogosphere in Belarus and Russia.

When creating the sample of respondent who were asked to fill in the survey (see sub-chapter 2.4), I listed the bloggers and their contact information, that I later used only for the firsthand contact, in the table under the numbers. By the moment when the textual analysis was conducted, there were 94 names on the list. For modeling a random sample, I used the webpage random.org that allows generating a desired amount of numbers out of the given interval. As a result, random.org generated 20 numbers, each of them corresponded to the name of the blogger in the list that I created for collecting survey respondents. After briefly looking at the volume of the content produced by the 20 randomly generated bloggers in the period of 1-15 February 2020, I realized that the time resources do not allow for analyzing such a massive of information. Therefore, considering the time resources and the fact that describing a blogosphere is not the primarily objective of the study, the decision was made to analyze ten political blogs. I turned to random.org again and it generated ten new numbers (See Appendix IV).

As a result, the random generation led to the following portrait of bloggers for the textual analysis: six Belarusians, four Russians, among them - six men and four women. However, as the purpose is to describe the blogospheres of Belarus and Russia, I have decided not to analyze differ- ences between publications of men and women. Totally, there were 99 posts analyzed, meaning the unit of analysis became a whole post that varied from three to twenty sentences. Inconsiderable number of adds, information on technical details about the blog, links to other personal pages, fami- ly-related posts were excluded from the sample, as they are off the study’s interest. Therefore, the thematic analysis presented in analysis (see subchapter 4.2.) is rather an attempt to understand what public/society-related/political topics are covered by political bloggers in Belarus and Russia.

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2. 4. Web-survey

A decision to conduct cross-sectional online survey, that is focused on analyzing a phenomenon at a particular point of time, was made for several reasons. First, it allows for accessing a whole group of people free of charge, and within a short time frame, overcoming distance (Bryman, 2008). Besides the sensitivity of the studied topic, trust in online surveys is lower than, for instance, in postal surveys (Bryman, 2008). Before selecting a web-survey platform, I consulted one of the political bloggers in Belarus, who suggested that in such countries as Belarus and Russia, Google Docx is considered as a somewhat familiar and trustworthy platform. Although Google Docx forms allow for less technical manipulations in a survey than Survey Monkey, I have considered trust in the platform as an essential factor and utilized Google Docx.

The survey, conducted in the period of 25 March - 5 May 2020, consisted of twenty-three questions (see Appendix I). It started with an explanatory note about the aim of the research, the researcher's background, and contacts. Google Docx then directed respondents to the section explaining how the data will be stored following the GDPR recommendations from Södertörn Univer- sity. Only after the respondents clicked the tick box agreeing to accept the conditions of data collection, proceeding and storage, they were allowed to move on to the section with questions.

The questions were in the Russian language, official in both Belarus and Russia, while the respondents were invited to answer either in Belarusian, Russian, or English. The survey included both open and closed questions; assessment scales, and multiple choices dominated in the questionnaire. For providing anonymity to the survey participants, respondents had to indicate only the age interval instead of their actual age; no name or contact information were required to fill in. The questions were based on the literature review, analysis of legislation, and the textual analysis of the bloggers' posts presented in chapter III. Two questions were aimed at assessing whether bloggers refrain from expressing their position, and one following question addressed withdrawal behaviors (editing). The survey also asked respondents to reflect if, how often, and in which situation they practice self-censorship. A complete questionnaire translated to English can be found in the appendix I.

Based on the literature review and the context of the countries, dependent and independent variables were identified. In order to understand what factors can influence self-censorship, all the variables related to self-censorship (operationalized through several questions) were set as dependent. Such variables as age, gender, number of followers and country of residence are referred to as

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independent variables. In order to limit neither the respondents nor the researcher, every question, aimed at measuring dependent variable, was followed by an empty row where the respondents could suggest their own explanation if it was absent from the answer range. Adding option for comments requires a researcher to rather apply qualitative logic of analysis or codify every open reply, meaning time for processing dataset increasing. However, I still decided to leave a possibility to add own comments for ensuring higher validity by including all the possible options that the researcher might have not thought through (Al-Saqaf, 2014). The data was analyzed according to the responses to the closed questions, every response added in the comment was codified as “other”.

Even though there were not many responses added in the comment section, some of them are of the high value and therefore serve as an illustration in the findings section. Besides being classified as dependent/independent, the variables are also divided into: a) perception variables when the blog- gers were asked to choose the reply clarifying their role or opinion on particular situation; b) as- sessment variables referring to the questions where bloggers had to assess their routines in the social media according to the given scale. The variables are presented in the appendix II.

After the collection of the questionnaire replies, the data was exported to SPSS - the program of statistical analysis for further processing. As a first step, I codified the responses by assigning values for each variable and programming in the collected data. As the next step, I examined independent variables to constitute the portray of the sample. As the final step, SPSS tools were applied for measuring dependent variables against independent ones . The findings of the statistical analysis ⁵ are further presented in section 4.3. Choosing SPSS as the tool for data analysis, I aimed to reach a high degree of reliability. Repeating the study based on the survey results will, therefore, lead to the same findings later presented in this thesis.

2. 5. Respondents sampling

As it was discussed in the theory chapter, political bloggers are often referred to by scholars under different definitions. Additionally, the perception of the bloggers by themselves might deviate from the assessment of the researcher. Therefore, among the first questions in the survey, respondents were asked to reflect on their role: “Do you consider yourself a blogger?”, “Do you consider yourself a journalist?” “Do you consider yourself an opinion leader?”. Thus, the survey did not as-

SPSS Inc. (2004). SPSS Survey Tips [online], SPSS Inc. Last accessed on 3/11/2008 at: http://www.spss.com/PDFs/

5

STIPlr.pdf

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sume that everyone invited to participate considers themselves political bloggers. However, as noted before, the aim of the study is to capture the whole group of political content producers that were operationalized as political bloggers but not necessarily refer to as so themselves.

It appears challenging to assess how many political bloggers exist in Belarus and Russia. As Bryman (2008) notes, there are few expensive means for identifying the general online population.

That is why I have used a non-probability sampling of selecting political bloggers and snowball sampling. I contacted the most famous political bloggers via Facebook or email. According to Bry- man (2008, p. 202), “with this approach to sampling, the researcher makes initial contact with a small group of people who are relevant to the research topic and then uses these to establish contacts with others”. Later, I have looked at friends on their social networks to identify more political bloggers. After receiving responses from those who agreed to fill in the survey, I asked for recommendations on other bloggers whom I could contact. The questionnaire was neither distributed via social media posts, media editions, nor forwarded by other participants, and I instead selected to contact each potential respondent personally. In order to ensure personal safety of the respondents, I deleted the messages upon receiving the response - the day after the survey was closed.

Before the respondents received the questionnaire, they had to fit into the sample by corresponding to the following criteria:

1. they had a personal page/blog/channel in the social media (even if it is a journalist, I examined only those who potentially made publishing decisions themselves);

2. their pages in social media are dominated by posts of political character (criticizing political elites, local governance, environment policy etc.);

3. more than 1000 subscribers. As the Russian “Bloggers law” addresses those whose content attracts more than 3000 viewers daily as media, I have decided to use it as a starting point but decrease the number to 1000 considering the lower population in Belarus. In the absence of the numerical definition on who can be referred to as a blogger, the number of 1000 subscribers is rather suitable for this research and shall be reconsidered upon potential replication.

As a result of sampling, I have created the list of political bloggers from Belarus and Russia.

Overall, there were 128 bloggers whom I contacted, out of which I received 61 responses, making the response rate 47,6%.

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2. 6. Limitations

There are several limitations related to current research: generalization, operationalization, sensitive research subject, and ethics.

Firstly, as noted above, the study is not the first to evaluate self-censorship in social media.

Still, it is the first attempt to assess self-censorship among political bloggers in authoritarian countries. In general terms, it is rather exploratory than explanatory. Considering the low response rate to the web-survey (Williams, 2007) and limited possibilities to identify a general population of political bloggers (Bryman, 2008), a generalization of the results is possible within the countries but is not necessarily applicable for the other authoritarian states, since the survey was designed in associ- ation with the countries’ specific political, legal and media background.

Secondly, coming back to the definition of a political blogger, the operationalization of the term should be treated as a challenge in this research. Therefore, scholarly literature and political and media contexts in Belarus and Russia were applied for operationalizing this group of people.

Only respondents corresponding to the criteria mentioned above (see sub-chapter 1.1), were suggested to fill in the survey. This means that the task of identifying political bloggers was left for the researcher to provide conditions for valid and reliable comparison.

For the third, the topic of self-censorship is a sensitive subject of analysis, which might lead to deviation in findings on self-censorship practices via online survey. For the fourth, ethics is another limitation that was considered. Even though I did not ask for the real name of respondents, their contact information, the exact age in the survey, the anonymity of the respondents could have been protected better upon wider resources. As the study was conducted among the respondents from authoritarian countries, authorities of which employ various tools and tactics in censoring political bloggers, there is no guarantee that the first-hand conversations between me and the bloggers were safe. At the same time, even if unauthorized personalities access the survey data, it appears impossible to associate a particular person with their response in the survey.

Finally, the study’s limitation lies in its method of researching self-censorship. Qualitative methods, such as semi-structured interviews with political bloggers, would add significant value to the research of self-censorship in authoritarian countries. The same logic could be applied to the textual analysis. Instead of revealing the topics, one could have created a broader sample of social media posts and quantitatively analyze them. Combining quantitative research of social media posts with a qualitative method of self-censorship analysis is recommended for future research upon broader time resources.

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Why do bloggers keep silent?

By: Alesia Rudnik

Why do bloggers keep silent?

Self-censorship in social media: cases of Belarus

and Russia

Abstract

Contents

List of figures and tables

Introduction

I. Theoretical framework and literature review

1.1. Political discussion in social media: new media - new journalists

1.2. Web 2.0. in authoritarian states

1.3. Spiral of silence - do you dare?

1.4. Political and media background

1.5. Filling the research gap

II. Methodology

2. 1. Research design

2.2. Analysis of media legislation

2.3. Textual analysis

2. 4. Web-survey

2. 5. Respondents sampling

2. 6. Limitations