Identifying data categories

A two-stage content analysis was conducted. The first stage was seen as the general mapping of the content and participants. The following five questions, formed by the literature, were developed for the initial content analysis which generated separate themes with sub-themes used in the subsequent qualitative content analysis:

• How was the conflict in Zhanaozen framed?

The preliminary research identified the main sub-themes: socio-economic issues; law and (dis)order; political instability caused by the opposition in exile; political instability caused by the internal force; conspiracy; and other.

• Who was the voice of the events?

The following were identified: national government; army; police; protesters;

Kazakhstan’s Prosecutor General’s office; KazMunaiGaz; and political opposition both inside and outside of Kazakhstan.

• What/who were the story subjects of the news reports/blogs?

The three main subjects included: discussion about social networking

website; socio-economic issues; and the role of print media and TV in covering the events in Zhanaozen.

• Which sources have been used?

• What was the main language of blogging (Kazakh, Russian, or English)?

The early mapping of the content and of the participants also identified the following groups of bloggers: those selected by the government to visit the city, also known as the bloody bloggers; those who went on the trip to Zhanaozen independently, named by others as the free bloggers; and all remaining bloggers who either supported the first or the second group or remained neutral, in this research known as the other bloggers.

4.5.1 Identifying blogs on Yvision and LiveJournal

According to Weerakkody (2009), selecting the unit of analysis is extremely important when applying a content analysis approach. In print or written media, unit of analysis could either be a symbol, a word, phrase or a theme. When analysing Internet messages, the unit of analysis can be a pop-up advertisement, an entry in a blog, a webpage, chat-room discussion, a message board, or YouTube content (ibid).

In order to identify the online platforms from which data would be collected for this research, it was crucial to identify the key words and themes that referred to the riots in Zhanaozen in 2011. Having researched the event online, it was evident there were a number of topics that were discussed not only in Kazakhstan but also beyond its borders: in former Soviet Union countries and in Europe among members of the Kazakhstani diaspora. They included Nazarbayev’s reaction to what had happened, the role of one of the most prominent protesting oil workers Roza Tuletaeva and what had happened to her after the arrest, as well as the possible role of the Kazakhstani opposition, which is mainly located abroad and is made up of Kazakhstani diaspora.

In order to retrieve the list of blogs created on both LiveJournal and Yvision (available during the data collection time), a search engine was used on both websites and also though the links that were available on them using the following key words:

• Zhanaozen

• Nazarbayev

• Roza Tuletaeva

• Zhanaozen uprising 2011

• Zhanaozen protests

• Oil workers of Zhanaozen

• Mass killings of the oil workers in Zhanaozen

• Rakhat Aliyev and Zhanaozen.

In the process of identifying the blogging sites and creating content categories, it was soon realized that the LiveJournal platform was not used as much as expected by the Kazakhstani bloggers since it was blocked in the country and not many knew how to circumvent the restrictions by employing proxy services. Instead, the main blogging platform turned out to be the Yvision website. The so-called bloody bloggers mainly used it to write about their trip to Zhanaozen. Those who went on a separate, independent trip to Zhanaozen, were also posting their blogs and comments on Yvision. However, a number of Kazakhstani bloggers referred to messages posted on LiveJournal when reporting on events in Zhanaozen, hence, some of the LiveJournal posts were also taken into the consideration.

4.5.2 Identifying newspapers

Within the chosen methodology, analysis of the two types of newspapers is also vital, as print media still plays an important role in focusing people’s attention towards a certain issue (Tiung & Hassim, 2009). The analysis of the national newspapers also allowed me to see what impact the bloggers had on the mainstream media.

The process of identifying the traditional sources of media included searching for two national newspapers which were accessible to the majority, read throughout the country and available online due to the researcher’s geographic location outside of Kazakhstan. As a result, the state-run Kazakhstanskaya Pravda and the opposition-supported Golos Republiki were selected. During the research, the latter had been closed and re-opened a number of times which reflected on the frequency of news updates. For this reason it was decided to include Golos Respubliki’s online version – Respublika.

PDF versions of the two newspapers were used. Golos Respubliki’s website was included as it provided quick news updates as the events in Zhanaozen were unfolding and it was rather a useful page to use. It is also often used like a blogging platform

where people can comment on the articles posted which added another dimension to the study.

4.5.3 Ethical Considerations

Social media websites (SMW) are increasingly popular research tools. Social media websites provide opportunities for user participation in the creation and display of multimedia data. These popular websites are increasingly emerging as valuable research tools. There are several aspects of SMWs that provide unique advantages to researchers. First, SMWs present innovative opportunities to examine the displayed online behaviour and beliefs in a context that is naturalistic, as it is part of the participants’ daily lives. Second, SMWs allow a researcher to reach out and conduct studies within the populations that may be hard to reach in traditional research, such as underserved populations. Finally, in many cases, this research may be feasible and low cost, as it can be conducted from the researcher’s office (Moreno, Goniu, Moreno,

& Diekema, 2013).

Although this research involves individuals who either partnered with the government or went against it when covering the events in Zhanaozen, their messages were open to public. Unlike in the research conducted by Nuermaimaiti (2013) in which the identity of bloggers needed to be protected to prevent them from any harm, participants of my research openly identified their affiliation and were eager supporters of either the government, or the opposition.

In addition, the focus of this research was either of textual, photographic or audiovisual messages of both the blogging platforms and the two popular newspapers, not the actual users. Furthermore, when the free bloggers interviewed Zhanaozen locals, they prevented any names and other personal information leaking online to avoid the Kazakhstani government’s political persecution of those individuals.

Hence, taking into consideration the above, it is safe to assume that the issues of privacy and anonymity are not a problematic aspect of the data collection part of this research.

4.6 Summary

In conclusion, two-stage content analysis approach was used when conducting this research. First stage was quantitative in nature. During this stage, two social networking websites as well as two national newspapers were identified, which presented a sample frame for this research. Further, identifying a number of key words and phrases took place. Then with the help of search engines provided by both networking platforms, blogs that were of the most interest, were identified. However, in order to establish key articles in both newspapers required manual reading of the two as no search engine could be used.

During the second stage of the content analysis, qualitative approach was applied. A number of messages were selected from the sample frame for further analysis. Data gathered was organized into a number of categories, which included: framing of the conflict, voice of the conflict, sources for the information, and which language the information was presented in. In other words, this stage was set to provide an overall understanding of how Zhanaozen events are portrayed not only online, but offline too.

Findings from this stage were used to explore the impact of online political activism on political processed in Kazakhstan.

During the entire process of data selection, privacy was respected at most and only publicly available messages were used for this research.