Blogging in Uzbekistan: Raising Social and Political Issues and Self-Censorship

Abstract

Since 2016, the year of power transition in Uzbekistan, some significant changes have taken place in the republic in different spheres. Reducing restrictions on freedom of speech is among them. In this atmosphere the influence of bloggers has increased. They provide the audience with independent reporting as well as create platforms for open public discussions both social and political issues. This study is aimed at investigation of the peculiarities of bloggers messages on social and political issues. In this respect, this study asks: In what form are social and political issues raised by bloggers in Uzbekistan? In order to provide a deliberate analysis two subquestions have been put: In what form are social issues raised? In what form are political issues raised? Based on a review of the literature, as well as discourse analysis of the interviews both on youtube.com channel and blog messages of five popular Uzbekistani bloggers the study has provided the following results. First, Uzbekistani bloggers raise social issues freely using sarcasm, encouragement and creation of platforms for conversations with their readers given the fact that they have an opportunity to influence the situation in different social spheres, including education, city infrastructure, and etc. Second, they practice self-censorship when it comes to raise political issues given the factors that, on the one hand, they cannot influence the political situation in the state and, on the other hand, they are afraid of consequences of their statements. Thus, the results indicate that the situation in the freedom of speech in Uzbekistan has improved, however it concerns mostly the spheres that do not regard the essence of political regime. This aspect is closed for any discussions by bloggers who are nowadays one of the actors helping the population to solve their everyday problems.