Solidarity on the Internet: Presidential Elections in Belarus and Poland

On 26 May, at 18:00, the next session of the research seminar of the Political Sphere Institute will take place in the courtyard of the CSI. Topic of the presentation: “Solidarity on the Internet: Presidential Elections in Belarus and Poland”.

The speaker will be Michał Niedźwiecki, a political scientist and researcher at the Political Sphere Institute (Vilnius-Minsk, Lithuania-Belarus).

All interested participants are invited to attend the seminar. Registration is via email: [email protected]

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In studying the level of online activity during this year’s presidential elections in Poland and Belarus, the author decided to distance himself from the traditional scheme of analysing web units, conducting a comparative analysis on that basis, and drawing general conclusions. Of much greater interest is the study of the Internet in national political campaigns as a mechanism that disseminates the ideas of solidarity initiatives. At the same time, the concept of solidarity and solidarity actions will be understood in a broader sense: this includes the dissemination of information, calls to participate in or boycott elections, and other actions.

The choice of Poland as the country for comparative analysis in the study can be explained by several reasons. First, it directly borders Belarus, and therefore, given the general context of our region, the problem will be easier to understand and describe. Second, the same tools were used in both electoral campaigns: personal websites, blogs and social networks; banner and video advertising; online games, and so on. Third, this year’s presidential elections in Poland and Belarus had similar details, such as the same number of presidential candidates and the fact that the campaigns took place against the background of a generally unfavourable situation inside each country. Of course, we necessarily take into account the main difference: the degree of democratic character of the electoral campaign, which will be emphasised in the study.