Processual blueprint of digital repression: Comparative analysis of Russia and Turkey

This research examines digital repression as a gradual process rather than isolated events, laws, or mechanisms to create a blueprint of digital repression. It analyses changes in political contexts and the capture of digital media through digital repression mechanisms despite differences in regime trajectories. The aim of this research is to establish a processual blueprint, depicting stages and tools used by governments operating in various regimes. It uses a qualitative comparative case study methodology through structured, theory-guided document analysis on two distinct national contexts Russia and Turkey to analyse both common patterns and context-specific dynamics in the transition toward digital repression. The findings show that ambiguous legal frameworks often function as flexible instruments of control rather than fixed regulatory systems. The results of this study also suggest that political crises act as accelerators within an already existing trajectory of regulatory and infrastructural control. In this sense, political crises should be understood as a stage rather than the sole cause of digital restrictions. Both cases also show an evolving shift from content regulation towards broader internet control. Despite being at different stages of the blueprint and political regime, they show similar tendencies through data localisation requirements and increasing state influence over platform governance. The article offers a regime-adaptive processual blueprint of digital repression to understand digital repression mechanisms across various regimes as an evolving phenomenon starting from democracy and ending in an authoritarian regime.