New Messengers and Social Media Platforms on the Rise in Belarus

How significant were online media and social media platforms in the solidarity and mobilisation of Belarusians against Alyaksandr Lukashenka’s regime? Data shows that platforms such as Telegram and YouTube are becoming a force to be reckoned with and may outcompete even Russian media.

Mikhail Doroshevich is a well-known ‘internet veteran’ in Belarus but also a media analyst who organises many studies on the Belarusian media audience.

With the onset of the political crisis in Belarus last year, Doroshevich began to publish interesting data on his Information Policy website on how networks respond to the information agenda created by Alyaksandr Lukashenka, on the one hand, and Sviatlana Tsikhanouskaya and the Coordination Council, on the other hand.

Visegrad Insight: Mikhail, there are many answers to the question of why the Belarusians, about whom people have written ironically for a long time that this is a ‘potato nation’, suddenly turned out to be a civic nation capable of extraordinary solidarity and mobilisation. How did this transition from a depoliticised state of society to this kind of awakening happen? What is your opinion on how this took place?