Against the trend

The proliferation of social networking sites (SNS) over the last 20 years is a techno-social phenomenon of our age. Since it emerged in 2004, Facebook, the most popular social network in the world, steadily outcompeted its rivals in the overwhelming majority of countries. However, there are a few exceptions, Russia being one of them: Vkontakte, country’s local SNS, has remained the most popular site of this kind in Russia. The aim of this research project is to discover what motivates Russian SNS users to prefer a domestic networking site over its global rival Facebook. Uses and gratification theory and social network theory form a theoretical framework of this study and guide the choice of methodology, as well as the process of analysis and discussion. Qualitative methodological approach, and in particular interviews and comparative case study, was applied in this research. The study provides novel information regarding under-researched topic of SNS usage in Russia, and thus contributes to the existing academic works in the field.