Presenting, Representing, and Misrepresenting COVID-19 in the Five Central Asian States: The Political Underpinnings of Official State Coronavirus Websites in Authoritarian Regimes

Abstract

In response to the COVID-19 pandemic, each of the five Central Asian states (Kazakhstan, Uzbekistan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, and Turkmenistan) took notably different approaches to presenting coronavirus-related information on the internet through official websites. To understand these differences, this chapter engages with literature that looks at how states use websites for self-promotion, what shapes the decision-making of those elites in control of a state, and who sanctions the creation of those websites. Pairing a quantitative presentation of these websites’ qualities with an analysis of text and images, the differences among these coronavirus websites are sketched out before they are situated in the political circumstances of the states which designed them. This analysis finds that coronavirus websites developed by Central Asian states are not solely depoliticized platforms for disseminating information to the public, but, rather, are inexorably linked to the concerns and objectives of state elites; in turn these elite agendas are reflected in each state’s online response to the pandemic.