Mechanisms of Mobilization of Regional Protest in Social Media

The study is based on a wave of regional protests against the landfill construction on the territory of the Shies railway station in the Arkhangelsk Region. The events did not receive support from political parties, as well as other relatively large formal public organizations and the media. Despite this, the protests took on numerous and systemic character, and the region turned out to be in the ranking of the most alarming regions. The events did not receive support from political parties, as well as other relatively large formal public organizations and the media. Despite this, the protests took on numerous and systemic character, and the region turned out to be in the ranking of the most alarming regions. The dynamics of regional political protest is considered in this work through the mechanisms of its mobilization in social media. For these purposes, the idea of a “binding action” was used. It implies the rejection of the traditional understanding of mobilization processes through the activity of organizational structures. Instead, protest mobilization is understood through personalized content sharing in a decentralized network of contacts. As part of the work, from 01/28/2018 to 04/17/2019 for 80 days, information was collected on the activity of online protest subscribers on the pages of the Vkontakte platform. Based on the analysis of online activity, the main mechanisms for mobilizing regional protest in social media were identified.