Social Media and Cross-Border Political Participation: A Case Study of Kyrgyz Migrants’ Online Activism

Abstract

In an attempt to address the debate among social science scholars regarding whether or not online political engagement is a legitimate form of political participation, this study investigates the conditions under which migrants engage politically with virtual communities, and when and how online participation spills over to real-world social mobilization. The case study of Kyrgyz migrants’ online activism in virtual social media groups and pages on Facebook and its Russian equivalents VKontakte and Odnoklassniki demonstrates that, although migrants are not likely to routinely participate in, initiate, or continuously engage with political conversations on these platforms, crisis conditions, such as the October revolution in 2020, the first COVID wave the summer of that same year, and the Kyrgyz–Tajik border conflict in April–May 2021, trigger bursts of political activism on social media which carry over to the real-world in the form of fundraising and protest mobilization.