From Colour Revolutions to the Arab Spring: The Role of Civil Society in Democracy Building and Transition Processes

A Double-Edge Sword? Mass Media and Nonviolent Dissent in Autocracies

“…Through its daily news programs and investigative reporting, Rustavi-2 “gained widespread popularity as a result of several years of open and fearless criticism of the Shevardnadze regime” (Welt 2009, 161–62) and “critical reporting, and the fact that it was the only channel other than state TV that had a national reach, turned Rustavi-2 into the most watched channel in Georgia” (Anable 2006, 16). According to Kudlenko (2015, 173), during the Rose Revolution Rustavi-2 was one of the first sources of information for online discussions about protest strategies and general information about the revolution. It was also available to the many Georgians who could not afford newspapers.…”

“…Previous work suggests that dictators often use mass media outlets to monitor dissent and strengthen their rule, while at the same time acknowledges the potential risks associated with the presence of imperfectly media outlets (Gohdes, 2020;Lorentzen, 2014;Shadmehr and Bernhardt, 2015;Gehlbach and Sonin, 2014). Case-based research likewise points to the relevance of mass media in explaining dissent activity (McFaul, 2005;Kudlenko, 2015;Areshidze, 2007). These case studies offer valuable insights, but in general underline idiosyncrasies of particular cases and do not address the problem of case selection on the dependent variable.…”

Wsparcie nowych mediów na Ukrainie w ramach polskiego programu pomocy rozwojowej

“…Even if media have more or less limited possibilities of informing, educating or mobilizing society in countries in transitions, they are still involved in transformation processes which was visible on the examples of colour revolutions (Beacháin, Polese, 2010;Kudlenko, 2015;Lysenko, Desouza, 2012), Arab Spring (Arafa, 2015;Cottle, 2011;Lynch, Freelon, Aday, 2016;Robertson, 2013) or recently during Euromaidan (Bohdanova, 2014;Shveda, Park, 2016;Zaliznyak, 2014). Speaking of PostSoviet space, some authors point the existence of independent media as one of the factors contributing to the final result of colour revolutions, in addition to e.g.…”