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Cited by 489Social Media and PoliticsSociopolitical Dynamics in RussiaMedia Influence and Politics

Social Media and Protest Participation: Evidence From Russia

Open access
Enikolopov, Ruben, Makarin, Alexey, Petrova, Maria·2020·Econometrica
DOI 10.3982/ecta14281
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Abstract

Do new communication technologies, such as social media, alleviate the collective action problem? This paper provides evidence that penetration of VK, the dominant Russian online social network, led to more protest activity during a wave of protests in Russia in 2011. As a source of exogenous variation in network penetration, we use the information on the city of origin of the students who studied with the founder of VK, controlling for the city of origin of the students who studied at the same university several years earlier or later. We find that a 10% increase in VK penetration increased the probability of a protest by 4.6% and the number of protesters by 19%. Additional results suggest that social media induced protest activity by reducing the costs of coordination rather than by spreading information critical of the government. We observe that VK penetration increased pro‐governmental support, with no evidence of increased polarization. We also find that cities with higher fractionalization of network users between VK and Facebook experienced fewer protests, and the effect of VK on protests exhibits threshold behavior.

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70 of 70 references verified0 citation errors · 0 not checkable

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  • Common causal inference techniques used in the sample include instrumental variable designs, matching approaches, and panel designs.

    “Common causal inference techniques that were used in our sample include instrumental variable designs that introduce exogenous variation in the treatment variable59–63, matching approaches to explicitly balance treatment and control groups64–66, and panel designs that account for unobserved confounders with unit and/or time-fixed effects67,68.”

    From A systematic review of worldwide causal and correlational evidence on digital media and democracy (2022) · cites this paper as [61]

  • Information and communication technology, especially many-to-many platforms like Twitter and Facebook, can facilitate the quick and public dissemination of information about anticipated or ongoing collective action.

    “Third, information and communication technology (ICT), and especially many-to-many platforms like Twitter and Facebook, can facilitate the quick and public dissemination of information about anticipated or ongoing collective action (Christensen and Garfias 2018; Clarke and Kocak 2019; Enikolopov, Makarine, and Petrova 2020; Steinert-Threlkeld 2017).”

    From Coordinated Dis-Coordination (2024) · cites this paper as Enikolopov, Makarine, and Petrova 2020

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Related

Authors
Enikolopov, R., Makarin, A., & Petrova, M.
Affiliations
  • New Economic School
  • Einaudi Institute for Economics and Finance (IT)
  • New Economic School (RU)
ORCID
Venue
Econometrica
Publisher
The Econometric Society
Published
2020
Volume
88
Issue
4
Pages
1479-1514
ISSN
0012-9682 (ISSN-L)
DOI
10.3982/ecta14281
OpenAlex
W3124327028
Cited by
489
References
71
Citations by year
2026: 43 · 2025: 64 · 2024: 63 · 2023: 66 · 2022: 76 · 2021: 76 · 2020: 32 · 2019: 28 · 2018: 18 · 2017: 15 · 2016: 5 · 2015: 2 · 2013: 1
FWCI
42.87
Type
journal article
Language
en
Open access
Locations
  • Econometrica (publishedVersion)
  • SSRN Electronic Journal (publishedVersion)
  • RePEc: Research Papers in Economics (submittedVersion)
Funders
  • Ministerio de Economía y Competitividad
  • Ministry of Education and Science of the Russian Federation
  • European Research Council
Topics
  • Social Sciences › Communication › Social Media and Politics
  • Social Sciences › Sociology and Political Science › Sociopolitical Dynamics in Russia
  • Social Sciences › Sociology and Political Science › Media Influence and Politics
Keywords
social media, protest participation, VKontakte, social networking sites, collective action, coordination costs, information dissemination, political polarization, Facebook, network fragmentation, threshold effects

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