Ruben Enikolopov Presented the Report on 'Social Media and Protest Participation: Evidence from Russia'

On March 1 a research seminar on political economy took place at HSE. Ruben Enikolopov (New Economic School) spoke on 'Social Media and Protest Participation: Evidence from Russia'.

Authors: Ruben Enikolopov, Alexey Makarin,and Maria Petrova

Abstract:
New communication technologies, such as social media, may reduce collective action problems, but whether it actually happens is an open question. This paper provides evidence that penetration of online social media had a causal effect on participation in political protests. We show that higher number of users of the dominant Russian online social network, VK, in a city increased the likelihood of protest occurrence and the number of participants in these protests during the wave of protests in 2011-2012. To identify the effect, we use information on the city of origin of the students who studied together with the founder of VK, controlling for the city of origin of the students who studied at the same university several years earlier or later, as a source of exogenous variation in network penetration. Corresponding IV estimates imply that a 10% increase in VK penetration increases the probability of a protest by 4.6%, and the size of a protest by 19%. We also find that VK penetration increases pro-governmental electoral outcomes, whereas cities with higher fractionalization of network users between VK and Facebook experienced less protests. These results suggest that social media has affected protest activity by reducing the costs of coordination, rather than by spreading information that is critical of the government. We also have
suggestive evidence that municipalities with higher VK penetration received smaller transfers from the central government after the occurrence of protests.