Political protest in the digital era: major patterns of citizens’ self-organization

The paper defines the specificity of political protest in the context of digital transformation. Civic activists are found to be increasingly self-organizing, using YouTube, Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, VKontakte, mobile applications (TikTok), messengers (Telegram) to inform and mobilize themselves. Meanwhile, there is considerable support from alternative media. The main tools for increasing protest activity are memes, hashtags, as well as journalistic texts and videos of an expository and motivational nature. It is concluded that today, largely due to digitalization, a radical decline in trust in the government and traditional institutions of participation (parties, trade unions, etc.), civil activists are increasingly inclined to self-organize, while the forms of expression of their disagreement are mostly peaceful. Eventually, given the increasing use by authorities of strategies to control citizens' behavior and the high level of passivity of the majority, protesters will more creatively and productively combine digital opportunities to articulate interests, unite and organize themselves to participate in street actions with tactics aimed at maintaining anonymity (use of VPNs, evasion of video cameras with facial recognition, etc.).