IT and society: US researchers study Russian Blogosphere

On October 18 2010 the Berkman Center for Internet @ Society at Harvard University released a research report on the Russian Blogosphere entitled “Public Discourse in the Russian Blogosphere: Mapping RuNet Politics and Mobilization”, which is a research project launched to investigate the role of the Internet in Russian society.

US researchers analyzed Russian blogs to discover networks of discussion around politics and public af­fairs, culture and art. Beginning with an initial set of over five million blogs, they used social network analysis to identify a highly active “Discussion Core” of over 11,000.

The online “news diet” of Russian bloggers turns out to be more independent, international, and oppositional than that of Russian Internet users overall, and far more so than that of non-Internet users, who are more reliant upon state-controlled federal TV channels.

The Discussion Core features four major groupings: Politics and Public Affairs, Culture, Regional and Instrumental (paid blogging and blogging for external incentives).

According to authors of the research, the chief advantage of communication on the Internet is the way it changes interaction between Mass Media and society, by launching an opportunity to study different data streams and facilitating access to it to the wide audience.

The Russian political blogosphere is announced to support more cross-linking debate than others the researchers have studied (including those of the U.S. and Iran), and appears less subject to the formation of self-referential “echo chambers”.

What is more, in accordance with the report, Russians unlike the Americans and other western countries prefer using services, which combine features of blogs and social networks.