You are what you read: Media, identity and community in the 2020 Belarusian uprising

TY - JOUR

T1 - You are what you read

T2 - Media, identity and community in the 2020 Belarusian uprising

AU - Greene, Samuel A.

PY - 2021/12/20

Y1 - 2021/12/20

N2 - The movement that mobilized to oppose Aleksander Lukashenka in August 2020 was notable, among other things, for its ability to bridge divisions of social class, geography, age and identity. Almost uniquely in the pantheon of post-Soviet revolutionary movements, the Belarusians who rose up were not divided from those who didn’t along clearly discernible socio-demographic, ethnic, linguistic or regional lines. They were, however, separated by one very stark barrier: the one separating the country’s two distinct media systems, one controlled by the state, and one independent. Drawing on an original survey conducted in September 2020, just as the protest movement was reaching its peak, this article finds that respondents’ choice of news media was the strongest and most consistent predictor of their political opinions. Media, then, appear to have served not merely as aggregators of and conduits for social processes generated elsewhere, but as the producers of social and political force in their own right.

AB - The movement that mobilized to oppose Aleksander Lukashenka in August 2020 was notable, among other things, for its ability to bridge divisions of social class, geography, age and identity. Almost uniquely in the pantheon of post-Soviet revolutionary movements, the Belarusians who rose up were not divided from those who didn’t along clearly discernible socio-demographic, ethnic, linguistic or regional lines. They were, however, separated by one very stark barrier: the one separating the country’s two distinct media systems, one controlled by the state, and one independent. Drawing on an original survey conducted in September 2020, just as the protest movement was reaching its peak, this article finds that respondents’ choice of news media was the strongest and most consistent predictor of their political opinions. Media, then, appear to have served not merely as aggregators of and conduits for social processes generated elsewhere, but as the producers of social and political force in their own right.

KW - Belarus

KW - protest

KW - media

KW - identity

U2 - 10.1080/1060586X.2022.2031843

DO - 10.1080/1060586X.2022.2031843

M3 - Article

SN - 1938-2855

JO - Post-Soviet Affairs

JF - Post-Soviet Affairs

ER -