Dr. Pradeep Mahapatra
The death of Alexei Navalny, prominent opposition leader against the ruling party in Russia, during middle of February 2024 raised concern among intellectuals worldwide. He was hailed as a non-conformist leader both inside and outside Russia within a career of 23 years in politics. In an ecosystem of discouragement of opposition in the Communist rule in mainstream media, Navalny succeeded to reach huge followers through social media. The developments appeared to be a challenge to administration and the legacy media in Russia.
To counter autocratic rule in the global level media has a pivotal role to play for re-establishment of democracy. However, the legacy media in the second decade of twenty-first century failed in its ethical duties due to various reasons. In such an environment Navalny’s use of social media for political campaigning not only proved to be an alternative, but also powerful than the mainstream media for agenda-driven persuasion. Navalny started his professional career as a lawyer after completion of formal education. But he was drawn to political activism due to his strong personal resentment to prevailing corruption in the society, mostly corruption by oligarchs or rich businessmen with political patronage. He continued crusade against eradication of corruption and establishment of democracy during rest of his life.
Alexi Navalny died in the age of 47. His forefathers had Ukraine roots. He was brought-up in a small town 100 kms away from Moscow. His family was involved in basket weaving business. Navalny acquired degrees in Law and stock investment and also attended Yale University in United States for a non-degree programme. He started his carrier as a lawyer in 1998 which was abruptly ended with cancellation of his licence in 2013 due to involvement in a litigation. Navalny joined a political party in 2001 and participated in anti-government demonstrations from the very beginning.
Navalny tried to gather information on inappropriate financial transactions by oligarchs adopting an innovative procedure. He used to purchase little amount of shares in big companies to become accessible to look into their financial balance-sheets. As there was little chance to expose wrong doings of big traders and corporations in the mainstream media, he started a blog navalny.livejournal.com to post result of his investigations together with commentaries. Later he launched a YouTube channel to address to the public directly on regular basis.
Navalny’s evidence-based writings gained instant popularity. His presentation style in YouTube videos mesmerized the public. As a result even in a hostile media environment in Russia, he could reach millions of people through alternative media platforms. On the date of announcement of Navalny’s untimely death on February 16, 2024 the total subscribers of his YouTube channel counted 62 lakh 10 thousand.
Navalny was not a journalist. But he was engaged in two important objectives of journalism – investigation to unearth truth and publicise the revelations throughout his life. In the pages of history it is evident that Gandhi, Lenin and Mao-Zedong used print medium to reach to their followers throughout the world. Similarly Navalny took the route of social-media to propagate his campaigns. Sometime before taking leadership of famous street protests Navalny started a website ‘RosPil’ to expose corruption and tracked suspicious government tender allotments. It attracted attention of many.
Navalny in an interview to Esquire Russia told in 2012 that as the mainstream media ignored to cover his exposure of government corruption, he started a blog to putforth his point-of-view before the public. He explained that wide internet communication helped to enrich his public demonstrations. He estimated, “I think about 40 percent of the people come to protests mainly because of internet.”
He felt that different social media platforms could be utilised for different purpose to manage his anti-corruption campaign. “Social networks gave us some very much needed infrastructure, and different services are useful in very different ways. LiveJournal is good for informational, more detailed posts. Facebook has more multimedia features – likes, links, posters, videos, events – where you can see if your friends are going to this and that rally or not.” At the same time he clarified, “But the people didn’t go out on the streets because of Facebook or LiveJournal – its because they were angry.”
Navalny managed his public relation activities through formation of a trust ‘Anti-Corruption Foundation.’ It collected donations from various sources to produce professional quality media products, such as YouTube investigative documentaries with illustrations. It not only attracted attention of viewers, but also helped to understand the subject and motivate for advocacy. It was alleged that news about Navalny;s death was not given adequate coverage in the Russian media. But ‘Anti-Corruption Foundation’, banned and termed as a terrorist organisation inside Russia in 2021 and being operated in foreign land could publicise minute details about Navalny’s death worldwide. Navalny’s successful experimentation utilising social media as an alternative to mainstream media will remain as a glaring example.
(English translation of the original Odia newsletter by the author circulated on February 23, 2024. https://pmjournalism.substack.com/p/491 It is an open-access content, free for translation and reproduction)
Dr. Pradeep Mahapatra is a retired faculty of Journalism, Berhampur University, Odisha.https://about.me/pradeepmahapatra
References:
Allsop, Jon. The Journalism of Alexi Navalny. Columbia Journalism Review. February 19, 2024.
Russian Blogger – Interview with Alexei Navalny. esquire.com. March 21, 2012
