Barash R.E., Antonovski A.Yu. A study of social movements from the systemic communication standpoint: is a scientific theory of political protest possible? Philosophy Journal, 2018, Vol. 11, Issue 2, pp. 91-105.

Abstract

The present paper is a study of the causes and forms of contemporary protest movement. The authors carefully explore the theoretical language employed in the description of protest movement and examine the social functions and dysfunctions of protest, as well as the connection between extra-parliamentary activism and the traditional institutions of modern society. What makes Russian protest so specific as compared to other social movements around the world? One observation clearly stands out: the new types of self-organization are based on modern communication media and technologies, including the social networks whose importance has long been underestimated. It is therefore logical to subject the influence exerted by social media on the development of social movements to particularly stringent analysis before proposing a tentative model of protest movement in terms of communication theory. Further on, the authors raise several questions aiming to determine the substantiality of protest movement: whether it is an 'interactive rhizomatic network' or rather a form of collective action, and, if so, whether such collective action is a product of modified collective consciousness and must therefore be regarded as derivative from the plurality of deviant opinions and beliefs? Another problem which merits close attention is whether protest movement is to be considered a new variety of political conflict, or, to take another perspective, whether it can be understood as a kind of collective creativity or rather a previously unobserved form of emerging new (or old, but undergoing transformation) institutions. Can the protest be interpreted as a manifestation of the so-called 'civil society'? The present authors give a negative answer to these questions; they suggest that the essential and unprecedented characteristic of protest movement is the way it attempts to solve social problems without regard to institutions, organization, politics, or parliamentarism.