A few days ago, I participated in a seminar organised by the Liberal Party of Sweden on the upcoming parliamentary and presidential elections in Russia. The section of the seminar in which I was a speaker was devoted to the question of how the Internet and social networks can help to promote democratic values in Russia. It pleased and heartened me greatly that the issue of the Internet's influence on politics has ceased to be a ‘trivial’ topic, considered until now by very many people a passing fad without any substantial influence on political and public life. Evidently, recent events in the countries of North Africa have forced politicians and public figures to examine more closely the influence that the Internet and social networks have on the formation of public opinion and on civic mobilisation. Reconnecting society Member of the Blue Buckets Society, a civil society movement organized via Internet, photo by Flickr user quirischa Indeed, society unified by social networks and online communities is starting to operate in a more organised and effective fashion. People find others who are like-minded on social networks, start to think of themselves as members of a particular, organised community, take part in collective activities and invite their friends. Social networks, without exception, help society to feel like a political actor. In Russia's case, networks also help citizens to overcome the post-Soviet trauma that led to disconnection and atomisation within Russian society. At the same time, we must not consider social networks a universal determinant of civic action. It is a mistake to think that the growth of social networks necessarily leads to revolutionary events such as those in Egypt. The new-found social connectivity of people through networks is important, but only one of the conditions is necessary for social transformation. I would like to recount briefly below my speech at this seminar in Stockholm. Since my main task was to respond to the question of how exactly civic mobilisation can be helped and supported through social networks, I structured my speech as answers to five key questions: “What?”, “How?”, “Who?”, “When?” and, finally, “What is to be done?” What is the status of social networks in Russia today? How do they affect political and public life? Who exerts influence over and acts through the Internet? When can the growth of social networks and connections produce an effect on society? Finally, what is to be done to help the process of public mobilisation via networks? What? According to the statistics of the Public Opinion Fund [ru], the monthly Internet audience Russia during winter 2011 was 50.3 million people, or 43% of the population over eighteen years of age. The growth in the number of internet users. Statistics: "Public Opinion" fund. Apart from that, the growth dynamic remains consistent, insofar as the number of users continues to grow each year. Russian interest in social media is also at a consistently high level. According to the findings of the international project TNS Digital Life 2010 (an online survey of Internet users in 45 countries), 85% of Russian Internet users visit social networks at least once per week. By comparison, roughly just as great a percentage of the Chinese and Brazilian populations (87% and 85% respectively) are frequent visitors to social networks. In Germany and the U.S.A., this figure is considerably lower: 61% and 70% of the population respectively. How? In discussing the influence of social networks on public life, we must be guided not only by the number of visits but, to a greater extent, by existing experiences and examples of such influence. By this criterion, the LiveJournal blogging platform has the greatest influence on the political agenda in Russia. On LiveJournal, public events and occurrences are brought to attention with the help of user-generated ‘blogwaves’ [ru], and the media permanently monitor what is emerging there. If we are talking about potential for mobilisation – that is, the capacity to assemble an informally integrated group under the banner of a particular issue – then the most successful platform at the moment is the social network VKontakte (In Contact). True, it is worth noting that VKontakte can delete a group – of which there are already examples. In the second place in terms of potential for mobilisation I would rank LiveJournal. Other networks – Facebook, Odnoklassniki (Classmates), Moi Mir (My World) and so on – have not succeeded so far, with the exception of certain cases, in becoming instruments of sociopolitical influence. Who? Who are these people who manage to launch ‘blogwaves’ and influence the agenda, as well as resolve emerging problems? Most often, they are the most frequent users.