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Internet Regulation: A Text-Based Approach to Media Coverage

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Digital Transformation and Global Society (DTGS 2018)

Part of the book series: Communications in Computer and Information Science ((CCIS,volume 858))

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Abstract

Internet regulation in Russia has vigorously expanded in recent years to transform the relatively free communication environment of the 2000s into a heavily regulated one. Our goal was to identify the topic structure of Russian media discourse on Internet regulation and compare it between political and non-political media outlets. We used structural topic modeling on 7,240 texts related to Internet regulation that appeared in the Russian media in 2009–2017. We discovered the non-linear dynamics and the larger share of political media covering Internet regulation over years and compared the topics specific to political and non-political media outlets. We found out that most topics had a different share between political and non-political media and that discourse on law belongs largely to the political media. We also identified four clusters in the topics of media coverage of Internet regulation in Russia related to the law, norms, politics, and business, and the time references of particular topics. In addition, we show the parallel dynamics of the topics on site blockings and political opposition and provide the background on legislation and public opinion on Internet regulation in Russia. Our results demonstrate a rather politicized nature of Internet regulation and its connection to a broader political context in Russia.

A. Shirokanova and O. Silyutina—The authors would like to thank Ilya Musabirov and Stanislav Pozdniakov for their friendly critique and help with obtaining texts. The authors would also like to thank the anonymous referees for valuable comments and suggestions.

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Notes

  1. 1.

    See https://github.com/olgasilyutina/stm_internet_regulation for details.

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Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Laboratory for Comparative Social Research, National Research University Higher School of Economics, Moscow, Russia

    Anna Shirokanova

  2. National Research University Higher School of Economics, St. Petersburg, Russia

    Olga Silyutina

Authors
  1. Anna Shirokanova
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  2. Olga Silyutina
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Corresponding author

Correspondence to Anna Shirokanova .

Editor information

Editors and Affiliations

  1. National Research University Higher School of Economics, St. Petersburg, Russia

    Daniel A. Alexandrov

  2. Saint Petersburg State University of Information Technologies, St. Petersburg, Russia

    Alexander V. Boukhanovsky

  3. Saint Petersburg State University of Information Technologies, St. Petersburg, Russia

    Andrei V. Chugunov

  4. National Research University Higher School of Economics, St. Petersburg, Russia

    Yury Kabanov

  5. National Research University Higher School of Economics, St. Petersburg, Russia

    Olessia Koltsova

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Shirokanova, A., Silyutina, O. (2018). Internet Regulation: A Text-Based Approach to Media Coverage. In: Alexandrov, D., Boukhanovsky, A., Chugunov, A., Kabanov, Y., Koltsova, O. (eds) Digital Transformation and Global Society. DTGS 2018. Communications in Computer and Information Science, vol 858. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-02843-5_15

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-02843-5_15

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  • Publisher Name: Springer, Cham

  • Print ISBN: 978-3-030-02842-8

  • Online ISBN: 978-3-030-02843-5

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