In his recent article entitled “Kazakhstan: Independent Kazakh YouTube Bloggers Inflicted A Crushing Defeat On Mme Balayeva’s Information Ministry”, this author shared his following observations about what had been going on in the Kazakh information field during recent flood peaks in Kazakhstan: “The recent sharp rise in popularity of blogs and social networks amid severe flooding in several areas in Kazakhstan has provided an impetus for serious consideration of what has been happening lately in the Kazakh information field. A number of the Kazakh bloggers who have been covering those events and publishing their videos on platforms like Telegram, TikTok, and YouTube, have been not only the main newsmakers but also the obvious and indisputable leaders of public opinion throughout the period from late March through the first ten days of April. The Kazakh state and pro-government media outlets, which are contracted by the State through the Ministry of Culture and Information headed by Mme Aida Balayeva to promote State information policy at the Republic and local levels have then been hardly noticeable for much of the general public. Those days, there has been plenty of criticism leveled at the Kazakh President and his administration. The gravity of the situation is such that there has been talk that Kasym-Jomart Tokayev is suffering a PR defeat”.

The latter, a PR defeat, if the case, probably might be attributed to the weakening or even missing inverse relationship between society and the government. The media and social networks in Kazakhstan should, ideally, serve as a platform for communication between society and the powers that be – it is a tool for getting their feedback.

But in this sense, official Astana seems to be putting their trust merely in the State and pro-government Kazakh media and bloggers. The latter ones, as far as can be judged, largely follow the classic models of Soviet propaganda before the perestroika period. That is, they mainly display the achievements of the country and speak negatively about those who criticize the ruling regime and its policies, and, sometimes, about, say, striking oil workers in Western Kazakhstan, demanding higher salaries and better working conditions.

Here’s how Miras Nurmukhanbetov, а Kazakh journalist, described one such case a year ago: “In short, those ‘opinion leaders’ focus on several aspects. These are ‘dependency attitude’ [i.e. ‘parasitic attitude’, ‘parasitic way of life’, or ‘parasitism’], ‘repatriates’, ‘already high salaries’ and so on, with a direct or indirect conclusion that ‘it is beneficial for someone to rock the boat’… But it is obvious that those opinion leaders to a greater extent promote the latent position of official bodies and the no less official KazMunayGas [national oil and gas company]. The authorities, for obvious reasons, cannot voice it, so as not to worsen their already shaky image. However, they believe that they were able to form a negative opinion about the strikes among at least part of society. By and large, the formula ‘divide and conquer’ is again set in motion, dividing Kazakhs into ‘ours’, who are supposedly objective and earn their bread (with caviar), and into ‘troublemakers’ who strive to stand out from others.

Here it must be emphasized that part of the audience of those public opinion leaders needs this to calm down and find excuses for themselves because almost all of them have nothing to do with........

© Eurasia Review