”Decolonization“ discourse in anti-russian telegram channels aimed at north Caucasus (a content analysis)

In recent years social media has turned out to be a new way of controlling minds of people and forming the way they view the world. North Caucasus has always been a complex multi-ethnic and multi-religious region. Territorial disputes and old (but not forgotten) conflicts make North Caucasus easy to try manipulating to stir it away from Russia. The idea of ”decolonization“ of Russia has resurfaced again after the Special military operation. The article presents an analysis of Telegram channels which are connected by anti-Russian rhetoric, promote “decolonization” and are focused on North Caucasus. The social graph method is used to create visual representation of the network of channels and connections between them. The quantitative content analysis method was used to analyze the text. We were able to identify five main thematic categories: “Special military operation in Ukraine”, “Islam”, “pan-Caucasian identity”, “history”, “genocide of the peoples of the North Caucasus”. The main purpose of these publications is to create a negative image of Russia, as well as to create an image of the oppressed North Caucasus colonized peoples. The level of influence of these posts on the real population of the region is the main question. We suggest that there are several information spaces: internal regional (news channels and local bloggers) and external (all the anti-Russian channels). It will be possible to talk about their merger only in two cases: if permanent connections emerge between them or if the thematic content of publications becomes sufficiently similar.