The Russian Cyberspace Journal
Issue 1. Virtual Power: Russian Politics and the Internet
http://www.russian-cyberspace.com
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).
Issue 1. Virtual Power: Russian Politics and the Internet
1.0 Editorial
1.1 Wiring the Second World | Robert Saunders
1.2 More Than a (Blog) Poet? | Ellen Rutten
1.3 Possessive and Superlative | Vlad Strukov
1.4 Designing Political Participation | Henrike Schmidt
1.5 Media Constructions of Reality | Ekaterina Lapina-Kratasyuk
1.6 Runet for Television Fans | Natalia Sokolova
1.7 Political Interactions in Blogs | Olena Goroshko & Elena Zhigalina
1.8 The Third Siege of Sevastopol' | Tatjana Hofmann
Discussion, reviews, interviews, and artists' contributions
1.9 Web as an Adaptation Tool? | Floriana Fossato
1.10 Virtualization of Belarusian Power | Aleksei Krivolap
CALL FOR SUBMISSIONS: Issue 2 (Autumn 2009)
From Comrades to Classmates: Social Networks on the Russian Internet
The issue aims to examine the structure, taxonomy, function, and
significance of social networks on the Russian Internet. What role do
these new web-based forms of socializing play in contemporary Russia,
particularly given the paradoxical stereotypes of Russian society as
collectivistic on the one hand, and amorphous and apathetic on the
other? Does social networking in Russia represent a cultural form
specific to post-Soviet Russia, or is it only an unreconstructed and
uncritical adaptation of "Western" net practices?
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About the journal
The Russian Cyberspace Journal is an online publication that appears
twice per year. The issues are organized thematically, focusing on
timely issues and topics related to the study of Russian, Eurasian and
Central European new media. Articles from scholars from a variety of
academic backgrounds as well as artists' contributions, interviews, book
reviews, comments, and discussions are invited. The journal is published
in three languages, English, German, and Russian. The journal is a
multi-media platform, celebrating cyberspace as a variety of information
flows. The journal editors and the advisory board are comprised of young
but distinguished academics and net practitioners from across the globe.
Editorial team:
Vlad Strukov (London)
Henrike Schmidt (Berlin)
Robert Saunders (New York)
Ellen Rutten (Amsterdam)
Ekaterina Lapina-Kratasyuk (Moscow)
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