Is the Internet in Russia a political factor of 'real' significance? Or do the countless websites, journals and blogs simulate rather than stimulate political activity and decision making? The objective of the inaugural issue of The Russian Cyberspace Journal is to examine the relationship between Russian politics and new media, especially the Internet.
The issue consists of eight academic articles (1.1-1.8) exploring the phenomenon of virtualization of politics from different angles, and of two submissions (1.9-1.10) that pose a number of questions for further discussion and inquiry.
All contributors utilize the notion of virtual politics as a trope for Russian new media developments, as a tool for political technology or social opposition, and as a cultural practice in a broader sense. Through a variety of approaches to the study of new media, this issue presents a scholarly investigation of the representation and web mediation of Russia's political discourse and the most significant political events of 2008, the presidential elections and the Georgia-Ossetia conflict. The issue contrasts political debates on the Internet with those in other media outlets, especially television; it also analyses the relationship between Russia's notions of authorship and the practices of political mediation.
The emphasis of the issue is on social networks and participatory digital platforms, such as blogs or chatfora (Rutten, Schmidt, Goroshko, Zhigalina, Fossato); the authors make a distinction between official media and unofficial-digitally-enhanced-networks (Schmidt, Strukov), and between the presentation of political events on the state-controlled television and their mediation on oppositional web sites (Lapina-Kratasyuk, Sokolova). Other contributors analyse how the Internet-the allegedly neutral, transnational medium-is used for dissemination of national imagery and expressing national sensibility in a variety of forms (Strukov, Hofmann). In their analysis, the contributors go beyond the domain of Russian Federation, by looking at the cases of Belarus (Krivolap) and Ukraine (Hofmann), and generally by positioning the new media developments in the post-Soviet countries in relation to a wider axis of what was once deemed the Second World (Saunders).
We encourage you to join our discussion of virtual power in our blog, and we cordially welcome your contributions to our next issue.