Democratizing kompromat: the affordances of social media for state-sponsored harassment

This study examines how a traditional tool of authoritarian social control - harassment of the opposition - has evolved with the need for more subtle harassment in the twenty-first-century transnational activism and social media era. Social media affords cheap and easy opportunities for authoritaria...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:Information, communication & society communication & society, 2015-10, Vol.18 (10), p.1158-1174
Main Author: Pearce, Katy E.
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
Activism
authoritarian
Authoritarian regimes
Azerbaijan
cyberbullying
Digital media
Domestic
Evolution
Harassment
Information and communication technologies
Information technology
Internet
meme
opposition
Political opposition
Social control
Social media
Social networks
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Summary:This study examines how a traditional tool of authoritarian social control - harassment of the opposition - has evolved with the need for more subtle harassment in the twenty-first-century transnational activism and social media era. Social media affords cheap and easy opportunities for authoritarian regimes, in this case, Azerbaijan, to subtly harass opposition to a large domestic audience, while eschewing direct attribution of the harassment. In this way, despite the challenges that information and communication technologies present authoritarian regimes, they also provide opportunities to increase control.
ISSN:1369-118X
1468-4462
DOI:10.1080/1369118X.2015.1021705