Since Russia started a full-scale war of aggression in Ukraine in February 2022, the country's civil society, opposition and independent media have been suppressed. In these circumstances, the importance of social media as a forum for discussion and a platform for activism has become even more prominent. At the same time, it has become a central source of information for the study of Russia's internal development.
The Pan-European Institute’s project “Social media environment and social stability in extraordinary circumstances” has focused on investigating Russian anti-war and anti-regime activism in the Telegram messaging app after February 2022 and analyzing the importance of social media as a platform for activism. The goal of the project has also been to map the usability of social media in monitoring the development of Finland's security environment. The two-year (2023-2024) research project has been funded by the Scientific Advisory Board for Defence (MATINE).
The project found that Telegram was an important tool for Russian anti-war activists, which was primarily used for free communication, discussion, and the organization and coordination of resistance activities. With the strengthening of authoritarianism and repression in Russia, Telegram offered activists a tool with which they sought to increase awareness of the war and the existence of resistance, to motivate and activate people to act, to create a collective identity and Russia-wide anti-war networks, and to secure the continuity of activism. Reporting on events and conveying related interpretations in Telegram also served as a means of influencing different target audiences and as a tool in mobilizing Russians for anti-war activities.
The goal – and the challenge – of Russian anti-war activists was to increase the effectiveness of the resistance by expanding it beyond the online environment. In Russia, however, the threshold to participate in public protest activities is high due to the considerable security risks associated with it. Although at the moment the expansion of Russian anti-war activism on a large scale outside of social media seems quite unlikely, it is important to monitor the activities of activists and the development of their networks so that possible signs of internal change in Russia can be detected in time. From the point of view of monitoring internal developments in Russia, social media platforms are indeed essential tools, as they offer up-to-date information on, among other things, socio-political developments, social movements and the opinion environment. With the help of comprehensive and real-time social media monitoring, it is also possible to identify weak signals of social changes in Finland's neighbouring regions and thus anticipate their effects on Finland's security environment.
You can read more about the results of the research project in the project's final report and Idäntutkimus Journal (both in Finnish).
