I read a lot of things others might find unusual and obscure. A recent book that probably fits this description would be the Red Web. This book was written by Andrei Soldatov and Irina Borogran – Russian authors that write about Russia since the end of the Soviet Union.
This book chronicles the opposing forces of control and surveillance versus freedom as applied to communication. My interest was in the control and concerns about the role of the internet, but the book offers a broader focus including newspapers, radio and television, and telephone communication. The book shows how citizens used a given communication avenue for expressing themselves often to voice their concerns about the government and then how the government pushed back through monitoring, blocking, and other more direct means. The book ends with the role of Russia in the U.S. election of 2016, but leads up to this analysis by showing it stems from similar tactics employed in Russia and against other countries Russia has had the motivation to manipulate.
Did Russia interfere in the election. Absolutely. They stole and shared information. They created false communications from U.S. citizens promoted as authentic. They engaged in a disinformation campaign designed to reduce support for Hillary Clinton. Did these actions determine the outcome of the election. The authors say they have no way of knowing, but the results were consistent with the intent of the actions taken by Russian actors. This was not a book about collusion or interactions with Republican operatives. This was a book about the communication-oriented forces at work in Russia and how these forces have also been turned outward to influence what happens in other countries.
While there was considerable red meat here for those interested in the political implications, the focus of the author is more generally on the role communications opportunities and the likelihood of the survival of these opportunities. The authors remain optimistic:
Does this mean we should accept the concept that the Internet carries more threats than benefits? The creators of the Internet supported the opposite concept. Unlike Putin, they believed in people and built the global network under the assumption that it would be used for sharing something good. They may look naïve these days, but we got our modern linked-up technological world thanks to their concepts, not Putin’s. The Internet—and the concepts behind it—are still full of potential.
Here is the review from The Guardian – interesting that no mention is made of the section of the book that deals with the U.S. election. Maybe the reviewer did not have time to read the last part of the book.