About RuNet Echo

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RuNet Echo is a project of Global Voices. The project’s main purpose is to expand and deepen the understanding of the Russian Internet (RuNet) and related online communities.

Our goal is to become a leading source of objective, comprehensive and valuable information on the Russian Internet. We also strive to contribute to the ongoing research of RuNet by providing a more extensive look into Russian online communities and the whole range of issues associated with them.

RuNet Echo editors research and analyze the increasingly complex nature of RuNet through original reporting, investigation, and translation of current issues and topics in Russia and their representation in various blogging platforms, forums, social networks and online media of different affiliations.

RuNet Echo focuses on several issues:

  • The role of the Internet in Russian civic society and politics.
  • The changing media landscape and the importance of online platforms in breaking news coverage.
  • Internet policy in Russia and its effect on bridging the digital divide and developing the freedom of speech practices.
  • Information security and cyber-warfare.
  • The landscape of Russian and Russian-language online communities.

Along with reporting on those “mainstream” topics of the Russian Internet, the project also analyzes less traditional themes, such as online nationalists movements, reformist issues, political PR and astroturfing, and marginalized online communities and Web sites.

We, the project’s editorial team, strongly believe in productive collaboration with a global audience and encourage our readers to provide feedback and suggest additional themes and topics that need to be addressed in our research/work. It can be easily done by sending us an e-mail.