In this episode, we speak with Svetlana Chuikina, researcher in Media and Communication Studies. Her doctoral thesis examines anti-war activism, public engagement and media technologies in contemporary Russia. Drawing on the concept of infrastructuring, understood as the interplay between technologies and user practices, her research explores how counterpublics emerge and operate within an increasingly militarised and authoritarian environment.
Based on extensive interviews with activists and members of the broader public, complemented by ethnographic fieldwork, Svetlana Chuikina’s thesis present several important findings. It shows how people actively negotiate both the opportunities and limitations of media platforms in their everyday lives and activist practices. Her research also develops the concept of distributed attention to explain how actors compete for and sustain public attention in a hostile environment characterised by state control, censorship and surveillance.
In our discussion, Svetlana offers valuable insights into the relationship between technology, political resistance and public life, highlighting the ways in which people use digital infrastructures to maintain spaces for collective action under authoritarian conditions.
Svetlana Chuikina’s doctoral thesis can be downloaded from DiVA: Infrastructuring Counterpublics: Digital Engagement and Distributed Attention in Russian Anti-War Movements
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