In a country plagued by state censorship, blogs have become a “lively alternative to mainstream media," reported the Nation yesterday. Today, over 700,000 users of Live Journal are posting in Russian.
Russian users of Live Journal differ from typical users, Live Journal founder Brad Fitzpatrick points out. We know and love Live Journal for its “personal diary” status, where millions of people post for only a dozen friends to read about their angst-ridden lives. Russians however, are using the personal blog as a political platform, and are getting pretty big readerships. While some bloggers may only have a few friends, on average, they are reading about 50-60 blog posts of other people.
With parliamentary elections in December and Presidential elections in March of 2008, the impact of Russia’s unique political blogosphere will be put to the test: whether political bloggers will spin their upcoming posts according to kickbacks or bribes from the government, or whether they will use the freedom to report as a means to inspire people to react. Unfortunately, while large readership is seems already obtained, large societal reaction might take a bit more to change centuries of political corruption.
melissah @ Sun, 02/25/2007 - 10:04am
I think it's fantastic that LiveJournal and similar preset blog sites are platforms for arenas of political debate on a very personal sphere. If it causes lively discussions and acts as a primer for thinking during the upcoming elections, it would be nothing short of awesome. I believe China has access to similar types of media and I'm curious as to how their blogs are developing, especially in consideration to the concern of governmental censorship. It's appalling that Google practically created an alternate internet for China to appease their ideas of a free media and lack of human rights. I wonder if political speak on in blogs get to be to strong on blogs, if China will intervene and shut them down.