Grassroots activism constitutes the backbone of civil society across political regimes. While many studies explored the role of social media and digital platforms in social movements, we focus on the ways local activists use these social media platforms to organize collectively against unwanted urban development. Localized (place-based) contention differs from large-scale social movements: it is less endowed with resources and it is directly related to physical space. We analyze 26 urban conflicts in six Russian cities based on 185 interviews with activists and experts to show how the residents leverage digital platforms’ affordances and argue that the former extensively rely on the latter for coordination, communication, and recruitment purposes. Yet, the nature of place-based conflicts makes blending online and offline organizational activities inevitable. We also demonstrate that despite their benefits, digital platforms also bring organizational challenges. The authoritarian state imposes further constraints, requiring activists to take into account state surveillance and repression in their engagement with social media. Our study contributes to the scholarship on digitally mediated actions, urging a reevaluation of social media’s role in local collective actions.

中文翻译：

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地方行动主义在威权主义环境中走向数字化：在俄罗斯基于地方的冲突中使用数字平台

草根行动主义构成了跨政治政权的公民社会的支柱。虽然许多研究探讨了社交媒体和数字平台在社会运动中的作用，但我们关注当地活动家利用这些社交媒体平台集体组织起来反对不受欢迎的城市发展的方式。本地化（基于地方的）争论与大规模的社会运动不同：它的资源较少，并且与物理空间直接相关。我们根据对活动家和专家的 185 次采访分析了俄罗斯 6 个城市的 26 起城市冲突，以展示居民如何利用数字平台的可供性，并认为前者广泛依赖后者进行协调、沟通和招聘目的。然而，基于地方的冲突的性质使得线上和线下组织活动的混合是不可避免的。我们还证明，尽管数字平台有好处，但数字平台也带来了组织挑战。威权国家施加了进一步的限制，要求活动人士在与社交媒体互动时考虑到国家监控和镇压。我们的研究为数字媒介行动的学术研究做出了贡献，敦促重新评估社交媒体在当地集体行动中的作用。