| Abstract [eng] |
The social movement that emerged in August 2020 to oppose Alyaksandr Lukashenka in Belarus stood out for its extensive use of social media as a means of organizing protests. One notable actor in this movement was NEXTA, an oppositional news channel operating on the popular messenger app called Telegram. Given the influential role of this channel in protest-related communication, this study aims to evaluate the framing of collective action in the Telegram messages posted on NEXTA during the 2020 Belarusian presidential election protests. Utilizing the method of content analysis, this research seeks to identify the framing strategies employed by the opposition movement in Belarus and examine how these strategies evolved in tandem with the progression of the protests. By analyzing the content of the NEXTA channel, the study aims to uncover both the unique framing elements specific to the 2020 Belarusian social movement and the established collective action framing models that have been previously studied by researchers. The research adopts a content analysis methodology and covers a broad chronological range, spanning from the initial pre-election rallies in May 2020 to the decline of mass protests in November 2020. A total of 207 messages published by NEXTA during eight different protest weeks are analyzed through the lens of framing tasks proposed by D. A. Snow and R. D. Benford. Based on the findings presented in this study, it appears that the dynamics of the Belarusian protests are closely intertwined with the framing patterns of collective action, as carried out by the oppositional news channel NEXTA. |
