Digital Russia provides a comprehensive analysis of the ways in which new media technologies have shaped language and communication in contemporary Russia. It traces the development of the Russian-language internet, explores the evolution of web-based communication practices, showing how they have both shaped and been shaped by social, political, linguistic and literary realities, and examines online features and trends that are characteristic of, and in some cases specific to, the Russian-language internet.

Introduction Part 1: Contexts 1. The (Im)personal Connection: Computational Systems and (Post-)Soviet Cultural History 2. From the Utopia of Autonomy to a Political Battlefield: Towards a History of the "Russian Internet" Part 2: New Media Spaces 3. Divided by a Common Web: Some Characteristics of the Russian Blogosphere 4. Social Network Sites on the Runet: Exploring Social Communication 5. Testing and Contesting Russian Twitter Part 3: Language and Diversity 6. The Written Turn: How CMC Actuates Linguistic Change in Russian 7. Slangs go Online, or the Rise and Fall of the Olbanian Language 8. Language on Display: On the Performative Character of Computer-Mediated Metalanguage 9. Translit: Computer-Mediated Digraphia on the Runet Part 4: Literature and New Technology 10. Russian Literature on the Internet: From Hypertext to Fairy Tale 11. Occassional Political Poetry and the Culture of the Russian Internet 12. Digitizing Everything? Online Libraries on the Runet Part 5: The Political Realm 13. Politicians Online: Prospects and Perils of "Direct Internet Democracy" 14. Languages of Memory 15. Is there a Russian Cyber Empire?