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Little is known presently about how, why, and with what consequences audiences comment on their news in contemporary authoritarian regimes. In order to address this gap, this study leverages recent theorizing about the multiple public sphere under non-democratic rule. Accordingly, critically commenting publics are theorized as "input institutions" that not only create risks but also offer important benefits for autocrats. Grounded in this approach, the study develops a series of hypotheses about the extent of political criticism that should be visible beneath the news in three purposefully selected authoritarian contexts: Azerbaijan, Russia, and Turkmenistan. In order to test these hypotheses, commenting environments facilitated (or not) by 46 leading news organizations on seven platforms were considered (N=322). For each environment, coders established whether comments were published that were (1) critical of the autocrat himself, (2) critical only of lower-level policies or officials of the regime, or (3) entirely uncritical. As the findings show, the extent of readers' criticism differed systematically between the three contexts, broadly following the patterns hypothesized. Moreover, in line with this study's key assumptions, critically commenting publics were facilitated not only by opposition media but also by substantial numbers of state-controlled news organizations. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper examines the main modern approaches to the citizen journalism in Russia and defines its key features at the present stage. The publishing activity of the citizen journalists of two Russian platforms "Ridus" and "LiveJournal" was analyzed over a time span of five months in 2017. The analysis results were used as a basis for describing peculiar content features of the Russian citizen journalism, its nature and specifics of information presentation, and for identifying the areas of concern. The paper also deals with social aspects of the citizen journalism as a tool of the civil society enabling the development of a firm civil standing of the audience and encouraging professional media to perform its functions as a social communication institution at a higher quality. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]