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Abstract

Kazakhstani youth inhabit a cultural landscape shaped by Soviet legacies, post-independence nationalism, and global digital flows (Buribayev et al., 2025). Social media platforms – particularly TikTok, Instagram, and YouTube – have become arenas where competing narratives about identity, culture, and modernity circulate. While prior research has explored national identity, language ideologies, or media influence in Central Asia (Kamalova, 2025; Kurmanova et al., 2025; Lyanova, 2025; Nam & Mukhamejanova, 2025; Матжанова & Матжанова, 2023; Smagulova, 2023), very little has examined how young people cognitively negotiate competing value systems – understood here as the principles, beliefs, and priorities that shape judgments and decisions – within algorithm driven digital environments. Additional studies on youth digital media consumption, civic engagement, psychosocial values, and hybrid identity formation (British Council, 2023; Saparova et al., 2020; Sagikyzy et al., 2025; Tusupbekova et al., 2025) highlight that while youth actively engage with online content, the cognitive processes by which they reconcile local, national, and global influences remain underexplored.

Drawing on cognitive decoloniality, this study examines how young people critically reinterpret inherited epistemic frameworks and external influences in digital spaces. Cognitive decoloniality emphasizes that individuals are not passive recipients of cultural hierarchies but actively negotiate, resist, and hybridize knowledge systems, making social media a critical site for epistemic engagement. The research employs a qualitative digital discourse analysis of 100–200 publicly available posts and short videos curated using hashtags and content related to Kazakh identity, language revival, cultural traditions, and contemporary lifestyle narratives, including references to Western and Russian influences. Each post is systematically coded for themes of identity negotiation, value alignment, resistance, and hybridization, with critical discourse analysis applied to examine how language, visuals, and storytelling strategies reflect youth’s cognitive engagement with competing knowledge systems.

Preliminary findings suggest that social media operate as cognitive spaces of decolonial negotiation, where youth selectively adopt, reinterpret, or resist dominant narratives to construct hybrid value systems blending global and local meanings. The study contributes theoretically by extending cognitive decoloniality to the digital domain, highlighting the intersection of youth culture, algorithmically mediated digital spaces, and identity formation, and demonstrating that value transformation in Central Asia is actively co-constructed rather than inherited. Practically, it provides insights for media literacy programs, educational initiatives, and cultural engagement strategies, equipping youth to navigate complex digital information flows while sustaining pluralistic value frameworks.

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This study examines the use of Russian and Kazakh languages in contemporary Kazakhstani films, focusing on code-switching patterns and their sociolinguistic meanings within the national cinema. Our research question concerns how the Kazakh identity is constructed through bilingual films. In doing so, it investigates bilingualism through Kazakh-Russian language alternation in films produced in Kazakhstan between 2021 and 2025. The corpus includes commercial, independent, and state-funded productions screened at cinema theatres that depict everyday communication in multilingual urban and rural contexts. Our study compares Kazakhstani films produced before and after the Russo-Ukrainian war to gauge recent developments in post-independent Kazakhstan. The use of both languages in these films reflects broader sociolinguistic dynamics, such as language policy and the symbolic status of Kazakh and Russian in public life. Contrary to interpretations that consider bilingual dialogue merely as a reflection of everyday speech, this analysis demonstrates that filmmakers strategically employ code-switching to construct character identity and negotiate cultural belonging within a post-Soviet framework. The study is grounded in textual and discourse analyses of selected 11 Kazakhstani films, as well as in content analysis and in-depth interviews with Kazakhstani filmmakers. Our findings confirm our hypothesis that Russian is used in a high-diglossic variety – a high-status, formal situation – in contemporary Kazakhstani films, while Kazakh is used in low-diglossic settings – low-status, informal contexts. Such comparisons in the nation’s films show how Kazakh and Russian are used and what social meanings they carry, as language choices are deliberate tools for storytelling and identity.

Keywords: film studies, code switching, language alternation, bilingualism, Kazakh cinema

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This study examines transnational protests in Kazakhstan by Chinese women from the Uyghur and Kazakh ethnic groups to draw attention to what some scholars have described as “cultural genocide” in China’s western region of Xinjiang.

A small group of elderly and middle-aged Xinjiang women has been protesting in neighboring Kazakhstan for 600 days (2021-2024) to raise awareness about the incarceration of their relatives in the infamous Chinese “re-education camps.” The little media attention from the local Kazakh media outlets, which are also stifled by the authoritarian state, made women’s quest for greater visibility more difficult. Kazakhstan, positioned between Russia and China, is also navigating the complex geopolitical landscape cautiously, preferring to avoid supporting protesting groups and instead arresting or fining them.

The study examines news coverage by selected independent Kazakhstani media outlets in Kazakh and Russian languages and aims to conduct in-depth interviews with some Xinjiang women.

The research questions are the following:

• What frames are used in the local (Kazakh) media to represent Xinjiang women?

• How did Xinjiang women communicate to the media their cause in the social movement, and what strategies did they use to reach their goal?

• In what ways do Xinjiang women understand and experience their activism, and how do they resist the structural inequalities?

The main limitations of the study are a small sample of news items due to limited media coverage of women’s protests in Kazakhstan, and ethical considerations regarding interviews with Xinjiang women, as some of them may find the process emotionally taxing.

The preliminary findings suggest that the Kazakhstani media, in both Kazakh and Russian, reported on the women’s 600-day protests only occasionally, particularly when arrests and violence occurred, confirming the protest paradigm elements. The study also confirms the ongoing invisibility of marginalized women in media representations within social movements. Some peculiarities of local media coverage in comparison with international media coverage are discussed.

The study aims to add new empirical data on the transnational social movements of this understudied group in Kazakhstan and to deepen understanding of the disempowerment they continue to experience both in China and abroad.

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The research work is aimed at a comprehensive analysis of the economic nature of Kazakh-language content in social networks in Kazakhstan within the framework of the theory of infonomy and scientific substantiation of mechanisms for increasing its competitiveness through digital marketing strategies. The purpose of the study is to determine the information value of Kazakh-language online publications and systematically analyze the mechanisms of its monetization, models of interaction with the audience, approaches to assessing the effectiveness of content and the influence of digital platform algorithms. At the same time, the main attention is paid to the information value, distribution mechanism, models of interaction with the audience and commercial potential of the content published in the Kazakh language. The object of the study is media, bloggers and digital projects producing content in the Kazakh language on the platforms Instagram, Telegram and YouTube. As a research method, content analysis, questionnaires, and expert interviews of information and educational materials for the period from 2020 to 2025 were taken. The theory of the concept of Infonomics by D. Laney was used as a theoretical basis. As a result of the study, the features of media consumption of the Kazakh-language audience were systematized, cognitive, emotional and interactive models of content perception were proposed. In order to comprehensively assess the economic efficiency of content, the concept of the "index of intellectual and social capital" has been developed. Scientific research questions of the study:

What are the features of media consumption of the Kazakh-speaking audience and how do they contribute to the commercial success of content?

What is the information value of Kazakh-language content in domestic social networks and how to evaluate it as a cost-effective resource in the framework of the theory of Infonomics? The results of the study form a methodological basis that allows a systematic assessment of the economic potential of Kazakh-language digital content. The developed analysis model allows us to consider in an integrated way the influence of digital platform algorithms, the level of interactive communication with the audience and monetization strategies.

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After gaining independence, the Republic of Uzbekistan achieved limited progress in the area of press freedom. According to Reporters Without Borders, Uzbekistan ranked 166th out of nearly 180 countries in the 2016 Press Freedom Index. In the same year, President Shavkat Mirziyoyev acknowledged the existing shortcomings in media freedom and highlighted the need for reform.

Following these developments, several non-state television channels began operations, gradually diversifying the media landscape. Citizens gained greater opportunities to express their views on socio-political issues, live broadcasting was reinstated, and certain regulatory restrictions were relaxed. Television programming increasingly addressed social problems and proposed potential solutions, while online platforms, including news websites and the blogosphere, experienced notable growth.

Currently, state television channels in Uzbekistan continue to operate primarily in alignment with state interests, receiving annual funding exceeding half a trillion soums. In parallel, non-state channels function on a commercial basis, shaping content according to audience preferences and operating within a ratings-driven environment oriented toward profit generation.

Despite the placement of television programs on digital platforms, traditional broadcasting faces intense competition from the blogosphere and domestic and international online media. Surveys conducted by International Media Support (IMS) for PR.uz indicate that non-state television channels lead in viewership; however, much of their content is entertainment-focused. Traditional television functions are increasingly replaced by sensationalism, ethically questionable material, and fear-amplifying narratives, raising public concern.

Social networks also represent a significant challenge to television, offering timely topics and rapid dissemination of information. In this evolving media environment, both state and non-state television channels struggle to meet the full informational and communicative needs of the population.

In response to these challenges, the establishment of public television emerges as a potential solution. Recognizing television’s enduring role in shaping public discourse and supporting societal development, it is crucial to develop a comprehensive framework for public broadcasting and define the principles guiding its operation within Uzbekistan’s socio-cultural context.

A systematic analysis of the contemporary Uzbek media landscape underscores the urgency of creating public television as an independent, socially oriented platform capable of balancing public interest, editorial autonomy, and accountability. Such an institution could complement existing media, address current shortcomings, and provide citizens with a reliable and socially responsible source of information.

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Sergei Bodrov’s Nomad (2005) and Vladimir Khotinenko’s 1612 (2007), were created as historical nation-building projects for Kazakhstan and Russia, respectively. Both had enormous budgets (34 and 12 million dollars, respectively), and both failed at the box office. While the former is an outward-facing film, positioned to rehabilitate the image of the Kazakh nation both at home and abroad and dedicated to the appearance of Ablai Khan and the defeat of the Dzhungars, the latter is aimed at a domestic audience, created to popularize the Day of National Unity, a holiday introduced in 2005 to celebrate the end of the interregnum known as the Time of Troubles, the expulsion of Polish-Lithuanian forces, and the election of the first Romanov tsar, which followed soon after. Despite these and other significant differences, I will draw upon Anthony Smith’s (1999) concepts of “Gastronomic Nationalism” (163-171) and “Ethnic Myths” of the “Heroic Age” and of “Regeneration” (65-68) to argue that these films are surprisingly similar, from their presentation of the “natural” hero and the oddly similar military victory over the villainized enemy, to their use of magical realism and self-orientalizing, to the image of the beloved, which serves as a metaphor for the nation itself. As I will argue, it is precisely the film’s “fictional mechanisms” (or how the narratives are constructed) and the “social mechanisms” behind them (or the intended audience reaction), as defined by Pierre Sorlin (2001), that made these films “epic failures” at the box offices, despite their high production values. For both Kazakhstan and Russia, the failure of these films represents not only the danger of alienating audiences, by attempting to manufacture identity through film, but also a powerful, early lesson for their production of future memory projects.