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DOI
https://doi.org/10.31429/26190567-22-2-37-52How to Cite
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License.
Copyright (c) 2021 Анна Владимировна Волкова, Галина Владимировна Лукьянова, Денис Сергеевич Мартьянов
Abstract
The article is devoted to the analysis of digital vigilantism (digital vigilance) as a form of electronic civic participation in the context of the challenges of modern public administration. Digital Vigilantism is an interdisciplinary problem, which is confirmed by numerous foreign studies, but for Russia the term is new. Political science analysis allows the authors to identify the dual character of vigilantism, which is a reaction to the ineffectiveness of State institutions in the face of digital transformations and purports to be an auxiliary informal institution. On the other hand, vigilant communities can challenge the State’s monopoly on legal violence and provoke deviant behavior online. The novelty of the study also includes the role of digital vigilantism in shaping public values in the context of the risk of capturing a network civil society. The authors focused their attention on typical discursive practices of institutional (managed) vigilantism among the well-known Russian vigilant movements. Within the framework of the study, a network analysis of four communities of Russian social network VKontakte was carried out: “StopKham”, “Lion Is Against”, “Piggies Are Against” and “AntiDealer”. On the basis of the analysis of virtual communities audiences’ subscriptions, the circle of interests of “typical vigilant” is highlighted, and the inference on non-political character of movements is deduced. However, aggressive network initiatives claiming leadership in shaping public values pose threats to the sustainable and dynamic development of civil society in the public sphere through the promotion of the “non-civil” character of public activity, thereby leveling off efforts to create a common digital environment of trust.
Keywords
Funding information
The study (research) was carried out with the financial support of RFFR-EISI with the frameworks of the scientific project 21-011-31445 “Digital vigilantism and the practice of creating public values: hijacking network civil society?”.
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