Violent conflict and online segregation: An analysis of social network communication across Ukraine's regions

Dinissa Duvanova, Alexander Nikolaev, Alex Nikolsko-Rzhevskyy and Alexander Semenov

Journal of Comparative Economics, 2016, vol. 44, issue 1, 163-181

Abstract: Does the intensity of a social conflict affect political division? Traditionally, social cleavages are seen as the underlying cause of political conflicts. It is clear, however, that a violent conflict itself can shape partisan, social, and national identities. In this paper, we ask whether social conflicts unite or divide the society by studying the effects of Ukraine's military conflict with Russia on online social ties between Ukrainian provinces (oblasts). In order to do that, we collected original data on the cross-regional structure of politically relevant online communication among users of VKontakte social networking site. We analyze the panel of provinces spanning the most active phases of domestic protests and military conflict and isolate the effects of province-specific war casualties on the nature of inter-provincial online communication. The results show that war casualties entice strong emotional response in the corresponding provinces, but do not necessarily increase the level of social cohesion in inter-provincial online communication. We find that the intensity of military conflict entices online activism, but activates regional rather than nation-wide network connections. We also find that military conflict tends to polarize some regions of Ukraine, especially in the East. Our research brings attention to the underexplored areas in the study of civil conflict and political identities by documenting the ways the former may affect the latter.

Keywords: Ukraine; Social media; War; Terrorism (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: H56 K42 O5 P2 Z1 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2016
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (2)

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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:eee:jcecon:v:44:y:2016:i:1:p:163-181

DOI: 10.1016/j.jce.2015.10.003

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