Global alternative public on Instagram: SNA-based case study of blogs about migration in Russian language

The article examines the foreign Russian-language blogosphere on Instagram through the lenses of the public sphere theory. The study revealed active cooperation of bloggers living in different countries during coverage of the coronavirus pandemic in March-April 2020. More than 4,000 Russian-speaking Instagram users commenting on posts became members of the networked publics because of this cooperation, the audience coverage of the most popular bloggers exceeded the threshold of one hundred thousand subscribers. Bloggers who initiated contributory publications on the situation with COVID-19 in their countries were points of crystallization of public discussions for people with migration experience, who are often excluded from the national public spheres of both their home countries and countries of residence. By inviting their subscribers to get acquainted with the situation in different countries, bloggers have formed a global arena that arises at the intersection of online public groups that have developed around bloggers. The main mechanism for creating such an arena is the cooperation of bloggers aimed at their own promotion and helping other bloggers in opposing the algorithms of the online platform. Collaboration in the form of a one-time publication of posts on the same topic, united by a unique hashtag and including direct links to bloggers from other countries, leads to the emergence of online ad hoc, or situational, global media in Russian. In the arena constituted by ad hoc media, Russian-speaking migrants living in different countries could discuss the measures that states were taking to defeat the pandemic. At the same time, this global networked public remains a “weak public” that has not transformed into a participatory counter-public sphere.

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