Protest Event Analysis Under Conditions of Limited Press Freedom: Comparing Data Sources

Media and Communication

article

Jan Matti Dollbaum¹ 

[1] SOCIUM Research Center on Inequality and Social Policy, University of Bremen, Germany / Research Center for East European Studies at the University of Bremen

关键词: authoritarian regimes;    media freedom;    opposition;    protest event analysis;    Russia;   

DOI  :  10.17645/mac.v9i4.4217

学科分类：医学（综合）

来源: Cogitatio Press

【 摘 要 】

The investigation of long‐term trends in contentious politics relies heavily on protest event analysis based on newspaperreports. This tends to be problematic in restricted media environments. To mitigate the effects of bias and (self‐)censorship,researchers of protest in authoritarian regimes have experimented with other sources such as international media and dis‐sident websites. However, even though classical news media are easier targets for repression, journalistic reports might stilloutperform other sources regarding the quality of information provided. Although these advantages and disadvantagesare known in the literature, different types of sources have seldom been tested against each other in an authoritariancontext. Using the example of Russia between 2007 and 2012, the present article systematically compares protest eventdata from English‐language news agencies, dissident websites, and several local sources, first and foremost with a view toimproving methodological knowledge. The analysis addresses broad trends across time and space as well as the coverageof specific regions and single protest events. It finds that although the data sources paint different pictures of protest inRussia, this divergence is systematic and can be put to productive use. The article closes with a discussion on how its find‐ings can be applied in other contexts.

【 授权许可】

CC BY