Stanchik, S.S. Role of the Internet in the modern revolutions.

Abstract: The “colored” upheavals on the post-Soviet territory were mostly successful due to the use of mass media by the revolutionary opposition in order to manipulate the society. The goal of this article is to show how Internet became the weapon of revolutionaries. It should be noted that the so-called “colored” revolutions became the first wave of this type, when the opposition used the global web as an instrument for the demonization of the ruling government and for the manipulation of the social opinion. The popular social networkds, such as Facebook, Odnoklasniki, Vkontakte, etc.) were not used in “colored” revolutions, since they appeared later. Thanks to the Internet, the opposition managed to arrange on-line protest actions and the bloggers, who were financed by the opposition, wrote anti-governement articles. The organizers of the “colored revolutions” in the post-Soviet territory also paid attention to the specialized forums and sites. The lawful government attempted to fight the Internet-revolutionaries, but the global web was new, and the ef- ficient methods for fighting it were not yet formed. Therfore, one can say that the mass media were key in the support of turnovers in Georgia, Ukraine and Kirgizia.

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