Draft presentation

The impact of the new media on transformation of the public sphere

in Russia

Four-year student: Yudanov I.V.

Scientific supervisor: Kashirskikh O.N.

Topicality

• The impact of political communication framework on overall institutional environment in Russia

• Changing configuration of the public space in Russia

• The new political reality in Russia

Public sphere

• Used by Jurgen Habermas in his work “Structural Transformation of the Public Sphere” (1962)

• Public sphere as a social institution, within which independent and critically-reviewed opinion is formed

• The formation of rational consensus is a precondition for the emergence of pluralism

Public sphere and the new media

• The growing political activism in Russia is closely linked with the development of the new media

• The formation of new media spaces in recent years increased the degree of discussions and critical perception of political events within Russian society

• Do the new media shape a new public sphere, or whether they only simulate its formation?

Discussions within expert community

• J.Fernback and B.Thomson: virtual world is rather an imitation of the public sphere

• R.Barbrook: the new media’s development is a triumph of the "digerati“

• L.Friedland: new communication technologies expand democratic practices

It is generally accepted that…

• Russian blogosphere is a space free from the state control.

• There is a "discussion core" that contains discussions on social and political issues

• Russian Internet-users consume information that differs from that covered on federal TV channels

However…

• E.Gorny: Russian blogosphere is only a substitution for the public sphere, as well as literature and criticism in the XIX century and the independent media in the 1990s were

• Golynko-Volfson: in the years of Putin's stability the phenomenon of active interaction in the public sphere was “frozen” and actually was equated with forms of leisure entertainment

Novelty of the research

• Even such a "frozen" public sphere is gradually beginning to “thaw”

• December protests put the sceptical estimates into question

• The middle class, using new electronic media, trendy Internet TV channels and receiving news from social networking, is now a major actor in civil society

• Media content which is consumed by the middle class largely determines the transformation of the public sphere in Russia

The object of this research is…

• …the public sphere in Habermasian interpretation

The subject matter of our research is ...

• …the impact of the new media on transformation of the public sphere in Russia

The main goal of this research is..

• …to analyze the impact of new media on transformation of the public sphere in Russia, based on the new political reality

To do this we need to accomplish several tasks…

• To analyze the phenomenon of the public sphere as a space of communication

• To analyze the role of the new media in public space in general and in Russia, in particular

• To interpret the processes of transformation of the public sphere in Russia and the factors influencing this process

• To analyze the impact of the new media on transformation of the public sphere in Russia (with case studies), especially given the new political reality

The structure of the research

• Introduction

• Three chapters

• Conclusion

In the first chapter…

• The terms "the public sphere" and "the new media" are defined

• Theoretical aspects of the concept of the public sphere, its interpretation and criticism, are considered

In the second chapter…

• We will inspect the impact of the new media on political processes

• We’ll examine the process of how traditional media are replaced with new digital forms

• We’ll take a closer look at the examples of the above mentioned processes in Russia

In the third chapter…

• Russian public sphere itself will be the object of our attention

• We’ll examine the transformation of the public sphere during 1990’s, 2000’s and early 2010’s

• The role of new media in this transformation, as well as their impact on recent political events are to be analyzed

In the conclusion…

• …the main findings of the research will be formulated and forecast for the further transformation of public sphere is to be drawn

Thank you!