National information policies and Russian-speaking social media as a driver of Kazakhstan — Russia integration
The paper considers the integrative power of Russian-speaking social media in Post-Soviet realities. Specific focus is granted to how the Russian language spoken in the CIS contributes to the prevalence of Russian-speaking social media — such as VKontakte (internationally referred to as VK), Odnoklassniki (literally ‘classmates’), and Telegram — in the CIS region. The paper analyzes specific internationally unifying characteristics of social media and their influence on political and public life of the civil society with a reference to cases of public institutions taking advantage of social media to mainstream their information policy. The authors underscore the exceptional role of the Russian social media in the integration between Kazakhstan and Russian nationals and the overall competition with non-Russian social platforms amid current global politics. Attempts to develop national online communication platforms in former Soviet states are analyzed suggesting that as matter of fact ...