ONLINE AUDIENCES OF CENTRAL ASIA AND KAZAKHSTAN: CHOICE AND PREFERENCES IN THE ERA OF MULTIMEDIA NEWS CONTENT
This article presents the results of a study aiming to find out which media platforms are used by online audiences in Central Asia and Kazakhstan to access news, how active Kazakhstani users are on the Internet, and what news content most interests them. The study is based on the results of a large-scale survey conducted by the Institute for War and Peace Reporting (IWPR) in 2019 in four countries: Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Uzbekistan and Tajikistan. A total of 4,130 people were interviewed, including a number of media experts. An online research method was used, in which respondents were selected among Internet users in real time (river sampling). The study showed that, along with increased penetration of the Internet into Central Asian countries, online consumers of news content in Kazakhstan use social networks and messengers more often than those in other Central Asian countries. It was found that social networks in Central Asian countries tend to replace traditional media for users’ consumption of operational news. At the same time, Kazakhstanis do not pay attention to the source of information, which can contribute to the influence of fake news and manipulations. It was revealed that online news about economy, culture, ecology and a number of other spheres of human activity remain uninteresting for Kazakhstani users.