EFFICIENCY OF STATE AND FOREIGN MEDIA IN THE INTERNET SPACE OF BELARUS: A COMPARATIVE ANALYSIS

Abstract

Aim. To analyze the effectiveness of the national and foreign media work in the Internet space of Belarus.Methodology. The study analyzes the quantitative indicators of traffic on media sites (based on statistics from SimilarWeb), the size of the audience in the five main social networks, the number of subscribers to channels on the video hosting Youtube, the size and activity of the audience in the Telegram messenger (based on tgstat statistics). The author also analyzes the popularity of media in the Telegram messenger according to the size and activity of the audience.Results. The results of the analysis show that Western mass media and private online media remain the most popular among Belarusians; while the state media are inferior by a number of indicators.Research implications. The study identifies Belarus cyberspace characteristics and shows the possibilities of foreign countries to influence the agenda in the country.

Keywords

• information warfare
• Belarus
• mass media
• Sputnik
• Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty
• Telegram