COMMUNICATION FACTORS OF BELARUSIAN PROTESTS 2020
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.29038/2524-2679-2020-02-83-99Keywords:
protests, Belarus, communications, TelegramAbstract
This article confirms the findings of a number of previous studies that under authoritarian regimes, social protests begin with a combination of two main factors: increased restrictions on political rights and civil liberties and the widespread use of a (new) media channel beyond the control of the authorities. This assumption is confirmed by the example of the situation around the presidential elections in the Republic of Belarus in 2020.
The article compares the conditions and factors of mass protests in Belarus, North Africa and the Middle East and in Ukraine. It was established that before the elections in Belarus there were sufficient conditions and factors for the start of mass protests and they were involved.
We have shown that the new and uncontrolled by the Belarusian authorities channel became the Telegram messenger, which began to be widely used during the election period. The peculiarity of this communication channel is its confidentiality and anonymity of subscribers, as well as the narrow thematic focus of individual channels. We also analyzed Telegram as a means of political communication in authoritarian regimes, showed its differences as a means of communication from popular social networks, which were widely used to coordinate protests in the past.
We present the results of the analysis of the pre-election communication against the incumbent President of Belarus, which is based on the use of Telegram to spread the thesis of his “low rating”. It is shown that this thesis was generated with the participation of Russian big data analytical institutions and is largely disseminated by pro-Russian Telegram channels in Belarus. After the election, it became the basis for mass street protests and strikes in Belarus. The direct participation of professional political technologists in the management of Telegram-channels with anti-presidential content and their participation in the organization of the influence of pro-Russian and Russian channels in Belarus has also been established.
As a result, the probability of implementing a model of strategic communications in Belarus with elements of external influence on the course of the election campaign, which can be used to influence the leader of an authoritarian state, is confirmed.
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