Glasnost 2.0
Journal: Demokratizatsiya The Journal of Post-Soviet Democratization
Year: 2014

Does the Soviet experience with glasnost teach us that even if Russians don't have media freedom, media dissonance can lead to social upheaval? The diversification of media voices via the rise of the internet in Russia may not be media as we know it in the West, but it can still signal change as it amplifies divisions in society. Western analysts, scholars, and arguably even the Soviets themselves missed the significance of that dissonance in accelerating political change almost three decades ag