'Between Virtual and Physical': Features of Digital Activism of Russian Environmental Non-profit Organizations

Abstract

Based on semi-structured expert interviews with environmental non-profit organizations (ecoNPOs), this article provides a comprehensive analysis of their digital activism. The focus is on research questions related to digital tools and the implementation of user engagement in digital activism, as well as new opportunities and limitations that it opens for ecoNPOs. Using the Digital Environmental Humanities approach, the authors consider the features of environmental practices in online and offline spaces in their conceptual unity and comprehend the existing technical, organizational and other digital barriers when (re)producing environmental practices from online to offline space and back. The analysis showed a trend towards the digitalization of the activities of ecoNPOs, despite the fact that there is no clear division between offline and online practices as they complement each other. For activists, organizational leaders, and project coordinators, it is not always clear what 'digital activism' is because of the lack of reflection on the tools of their work. Almost all organizations use websites and social networks, mobile applications, and interactive public maps based on big data algorithms to promote their activities. The mechanisms of public involvement in digital activism are quite diverse: from advertising on social networks, in friendly online communities to joint signing of digital petitions. The possibilities of digital forms of environmental participation are ambiguous. On the one hand, there is a change in the paradigm of interaction between actors, in which they become not only consumers of information, but also its producers; accordingly, there is an expansion of channels for civil society’s influence on decision-­making processes. On the other hand, digital practices alienate users from real protest actions; at the same time, this form of participation is not available to all citizens, which generates new forms of digital inequality and social distances.