Chapter 7: Dis/Engagement in Post-soviet Communicative Ecologies: Re-Framing the ‘Chinatown’ Dissent Campaign in Belarus^*

This chapter problematizes mediated dissent in Belarus. It argues that the post-Soviet communicative ecologies create particular conditions complicating the nature and dynamic of civic protest communication in the region. This enquiry is particularly timely due to the limited theorization around dilemmas of (digital) civic activism in post-Soviet settings (e.g., Fossato, Lloyd, & Verkhovsky, 2008; Karatzogianni, Denisova, & Miazhevich, 2017; Toepfl, 2017).

The chapter focusses on the frequently overlooked state of Belarus, which is now a buffer zone between the European Union and Russia. It remains closely ideologically linked to its Soviet past (Parker, 2007) and exerts tight control over traditional (Rice-Oxley, 2014) and new media (Freedom House, 2013; Shearlaw, 2014). Belarus ranked 153 out of 180 states in a recent world survey of press freedom (World, 2017), despite steadily increasing internet penetration and access (Aliaksandrau, 2013; Pet'ko, 2013). Stringent media legislation (Freedom House, 2013) and ‘active surveillance and data mining’ (Deibert & Rohozinski, 2010, p. 27) are combined with (self)-censorship (Fossato et al., 2008), infotainment, the circulation of propaganda and kompromat (compromising material) online.