"The findings described in this memo strongly suggest that "softer" strategies of media cooptation are more effective than harsher, more coercive approaches to media control. In Russia, where the Kremlin has-until very recently-used a combination of commercial pressure and political influence to pus ... h media owners and editors towards cooperation, the result has been a media system in which even those Russians who prefer independent media have broad exposure to the Kremlin's messaging. Moreover, as the Vedomosti case demonstrates, softer repressions against uncooperative media outlets seem to afford the Kremlin an opportunity to capture the attention of a large portion of those outlets' audiences. By contrast, the heavier hand wielded by authorities in Minsk has helped create a highly polarized media system, in which oppositional media-despite massive repression- capture more audience attention than state-linked media, and consumers of independent media have very little exposure to state messaging. Attempts to stifle independent media outright only suffice to put oppositional audiences even further out of the reach of the state." (Conclusions, page 8) more

"The movement that mobilized to oppose Alyaksandr Lukashenka in August 2020 was notable for its ability to bridge divisions of social class, geography, age, and identity. Almost uniquely among post-Soviet revolutionary movements, the Belarusians who rose up were not divided from those who did not al ... ong clearly discernible sociodemographic, ethnic, linguistic, or regional lines. They were, however, separated by one very stark barrier: the one separating the country’s two distinct media systems, one controlled by the state, and one independent. Drawing on an original survey conducted in September 2020, just as the protest movement was reaching its peak, this article finds that respondents’ choice of news media was the strongest and most consistent predictor of their political opinions. Media, then, appear to have served not merely as aggregators of and conduits for social processes generated elsewhere, but as the producers of social and political force in their own right." (Abstract) more