Tik Tok, Telegram and pro-democracy protests: a study of Belarus and Russia in 2020-2021

本研究将采用多学科方法分析专制政权中围绕抗议活动在Telegram和TikTok上进行的数字行动主义的活动、功能和机制，并以白俄罗斯和俄罗斯2020-2021年的抗议活动为例进行研究。它将通过建立基于Telegram和tiktok的民主抗议作为动员和协调抗议行动以及民主运动普及的独特工具的案例，为社会运动文学做出贡献。它将寻求证据，证明TikTok和Telegram在白俄罗斯和俄罗斯的使用量的巨大增长，如何代表了社交媒体平台在抗议期间的使用方式的转变，以及当局如何被迫对此做出回应。尽管Telegram和TikTok已经成为数字行动主义的热门平台，但很少有研究利用实证数据来深入了解这些平台的使用方式和原因，尤其是在东欧。该项目解决了这一差距，并试图设计一个理论和方法框架，将白俄罗斯和俄罗斯的抗议活动概念化，这些抗议活动位于数字行动主义文献中。

This research will apply a multi-disciplinary methodology to analyse the activities, functions, and mechanisms of digital activism performed on Telegram and TikTok around protests in authoritarian regimes, framing as case studies the 2020-2021 protests in Belarus and Russia. It will contribute to social movements literature by building the case for Telegram- and TikTok-enabled pro-democratic protests as unique tools for mobilization and coordination of protest actions and the popularization of pro-democratic movements. It will seek to evidence how the tremendous growth in usage of TikTok and Telegram in Belarus and Russia represents a shift in how social media platforms were used at a time of protest, and how the authorities were forced to respond to this. Despite the emergence of Telegram and TikTok as popular platforms for digital activism, there are few studies that use empirical data to gain insight into how and why these are used, particularly in Eastern Europe. This project addresses this gap and seeks to design a theoretical and methodological framework to conceptualize the Belarus and Russia protests situated within the digital activism literature.