中文摘要
社交媒体等新型通信技术能否缓解集体行动问题？本文提供的证据表明，在2011年俄罗斯的一波抗议浪潮中，俄罗斯占主导地位的在线社交网络VK的渗透率上升导致了更多抗议活动。我们利用与VK创始人同期就读的学生的来源城市信息，作为网络渗透率外生变动的来源，并控制了早几年或晚几年就读于同一所大学的学生的来源城市信息。我们发现，VK渗透率提高10%，使抗议发生的概率增加4.6%，抗议者人数增加19%。进一步的结果提示，社交媒体通过降低协调成本，而非传播批评政府的信息，促成了抗议活动。我们观察到，VK渗透率上升增加了对政府的支持，同时没有证据表明极化加剧。我们还发现，网络用户在VK与Facebook两个平台之间分化程度更高的城市，发生的抗议更少，而且VK对抗议的影响呈现阈值特征。
Abstract
Do new communication technologies, such as social media, alleviate the collective action problem? This paper provides evidence that penetration of VK, the dominant Russian online social network, led to more protest activity during a wave of protests in Russia in 2011. As a source of exogenous variation in network penetration, we use the information on the city of origin of the students who studied with the founder of VK, controlling for the city of origin of the students who studied at the same university several years earlier or later. We find that a 10% increase in VK penetration increased the probability of a protest by 4.6% and the number of protesters by 19%. Additional results suggest that social media induced protest activity by reducing the costs of coordination rather than by spreading information critical of the government. We observe that VK penetration increased pro‐governmental support, with no evidence of increased polarization. We also find that cities with higher fractionalization of network users between VK and Facebook experienced fewer protests, and the effect of VK on protests exhibits threshold behavior.