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IN THE WINTER OF 2011–2012 IN RUSSIA, TENS OF THOUSANDS OF citizens attended protest demonstrations in Moscow and other Russian cities after anger erupted over electoral manipulation in the December 2011 parliamentary elections. In response, the state organised a large number of loyalists to participate in street rallies to support the regime. Similar to other events of mass protest from Occupy Wall Street in the United States (US) to the Los Indignados movement in Spain to the Arab Uprisings in Tunisia and Egypt, new media played a significant role in the mobilisation of protest in Russia. Yet, the role of new media and the precise mechanisms that link new media use and protest decisions remain the subject of some debate across all of these protest events. In the Russian case, the prevailing wisdom endorses this wider view of the critical role that new media plays in the mobilisation of opposition …