The space of political Internet communications in modern Russian Society

Litvin Vladislav Valentinovich Graduate Student, Department of Sociology and Philosophy, Smolensk State University 214000, Russia, Smolensk region, Smolensk, ul. 25 September, 48, sq. 22 sutulist@gmail.com

There is a constant increase in the political role of the mass media in society. Through the media, politicians implement a number of tasks related to the process of assimilation of political norms and values by citizens. The mass media are the most important tool for the realization of political interests. The media seriously influence the process of forming political preferences, playing the role of coordinator and organizer of information flows, implementing information policy, both of the state and of individual stakeholders. Doris Graber, demonstrating the political importance of the media, notes that they provide nationwide communication of individuals and groups, choosing the most important aspects for consideration. Many political messages transmitted by various types of media differ significantly in content, manner of presenting facts, and ways of addressing different audiences ^[13].

Before the widespread use of the Internet, the system of political communications was mainly determined by traditional media, such as television, radio, newspapers and magazines. These media outlets were mostly controlled by a few large corporations or government entities, and political parties and politicians relied on them to reach the masses. Those who had control over the traditional media had the right to decide which news or events to cover and how to issue them, which, in turn, influenced public opinion. Two-way communication between politicians and the public was limited. However, with the advent of digitalization and the ubiquity of Internet communications, the system of political communications has undergone significant changes. The Internet has allowed the creation of new digital platforms that have disrupted the traditional media landscape and created new opportunities for the dissemination of political information and increased the number of independent entities that pursue purely their own political goals ^[1].

The spread of Internet media continues to grow all over the world, including in Russia. According to Mediascope, 130 million Russian citizens are included in the global web, which is 90% of the total population. Television remains the most popular media in the country: 97% of citizens watch TV at least once a month. However, television loses out in the amount of average time spent using media. The Internet has an average of 4 hours, while the TV has only 3.5 hours.

In this regard, the question arises about the role and spread of political communication in the realities of digitalization, and, in particular, on those platforms that are represented only in this environment. The American professor of the Harvard School Yohaya Benkler in his book "The Wealth of networks" believes that one of the main advantages of the Internet that attracts users is the network nature of communication. This format is radically different from the established traditional hierarchical relations presented in other media ^{[2, 3]}. Network communication is characterized by such principles as: independence of network members, plurality of leaders, voluntary ties, multiplicity of levels of interaction. The network system is much more stable than standard formats. If one of the network members is lost, the system continues to function ^[6].

The Internet environment has a number of other features that cannot be found in standard communication formats. This includes extraterritoriality, when the resources of the Internet environment are available to all users regardless of their location, and multimedia, when content can be presented in various formats, ranging from text to audio and video. The Internet, in comparison with traditional media, is not limited in the amount of content posted. The user can look at the issue from many angles and get a more complete picture of what is happening. For example, an event has occurred, and the user can study the material from the official media, as well as from eyewitnesses, independent experts or people close to this event. When studying all sources of information, the user forms a more holistic opinion. Hilde G. Corneliussen, a professor at the Research Institute of Western Norway, notes such a feature of the Internet environment as its egalitarian essence. The World Wide Web provides equal opportunities for all users to access and use information ^[4].

Politics is connected with all spheres of society and actively interacts and influences them. The fate of countries and peoples, relations between them, as well as the life of each person depends on politics. Therefore, politics is of key importance and does not lose relevance for any member of society. In the networked society, politics has entered another milestone of its development, where the format of communication has changed and political forces have to adapt to the structure in order to convey and promote their ideas to the masses. In order for political communication to be effective, political forces interact and use various Internet resources ^[12]. These resources can be created, as well as by the political actors themselves, and private sites can be used. By political communication we mean the exchange of information between political actors and society, the purpose of which is to influence the formation of the necessary values and beliefs of the recipient in order to change them - in accordance with the interests and intentions of the creator of communication. Political and communicative subjects of relations on the Internet can be divided into two types: state and copyright ^[14].

State subjects of political and communicative relations are government bodies, registered political parties, municipal authorities, government organizations. The main feature is the possession of power functions and powers in the state structure. The main goal of the subjects is the formation and implementation of the country's policy.           The author's subjects of political and communicative relations are authors who spread their opinions in order to spread their ideas in society and influence state policy. Authors may represent civil associations, unregistered political parties, trade unions, corporations, labor collectives and other associations of citizens. The main feature of such subjects is the desire to obtain real power or influence on the state.

State and author subjects of political and communicative relations are aimed at spreading their values and beliefs to the masses.

The main issue facing political actors is the choice of a platform on which to focus in the dissemination of the political agenda. The key parameter when choosing is the popularity of the resource among the population, the more active users on the resource, the greater the chance that political actors will begin to implement political communication there. In order to determine which resource is popular, entire research companies are being created. One of these is Mediascope, which is the leader in Russian media research and constantly conducts market analysis, thereby helping to allocate resources that are most in demand among the audience. As of October 2022, the company conducted a media analysis and allocated the main resources of information consumption for the year. There are several such resources: WhatsApp was visited by about 73.6 million people a day, VKontakte - 51.9 million, YouTube - 50.5 million, Telegram - 46.9 million, TikTok - 31 million. If we compare with the results of the previous year, it can be noted that the number of users visiting Internet resources represented in the Russian segment has increased. And the outflow of users occurred only in resources that were recognized by the state as extremist.

Special attention should be paid to such resources that have received the largest influx of users over the year and are platforms not only for communication, but also for the dissemination of political information - these are YouTube and Telegram. Let's start with a review of the YouTube platform. Recently, there have been conversations in the information field about blocking YouTube video hosting due to the policy of the platform itself. However, YouTube's analogues, which are represented in the Russian segment, lose competition in the fight for the audience and because of this, even state media or government agencies continue to interact with video hosting. Examples of government agencies represented on the platform: the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, the Government of Russia, the Bank of Russia, the Ministry of Internal Affairs, the Investigative Committee, the Prosecutor General's Office. This is a small list of authorities that are represented on YouTube and have verification on the resource, thereby confirming that this is the official broadcasting channel. These channels broadcast news related to the state body in a video format, thereby interacting with the public in order to introduce those ideas that are necessary for the formation of a citizen's desired idea of the work of the structure ^[10]. The media that are funded from the budget of the Russian Federation, such as RIA Novosti, Russia Today, TASS and others, are engaged in covering the world and state news agenda on YouTube. The main content that was seen on these channels is news reports, reports and interviews, as well as online broadcasts of events. As an example, on February 21, 2023, there was an online broadcast from the speech of the President of the Russian Federation to the Federal Assembly, however, due to the blocking of news channels on YouTube, the broadcast could be watched from newly created channels that duplicated the broadcast from other resources. It is worth noting that over the past year the number of official government sources has decreased. This is due to the refusal of some departments to introduce activities on the platform, as well as the politicized blocking of state media channels by the resource itself. At the moment, there is little official content from news resources left on the site, and in most cases the user stumbles upon videos from news resources that have been flooded by initiative citizens in order to disseminate information. The YouTube administration tries to remove content belonging to blocked channels, but does not always have time to do it in the shortest possible time.

The author's subjects are represented on the platform in the form of bloggers, independent media or channels of civil associations. Users are attracted by an alternative point of view, which may differ from the state and the formation of other political theses.  The format of the authors is more informal and differs in a subjective assessment of the events taking place. Private opinion or blogs gained particular popularity after the announcement of a special military operation, in early 2022. However, due to YouTube's policy, some of these copyright channels that expressed support for the Russian Federation in the conflict in Ukraine were blocked, and the owners had to move to other platforms, thereby losing part of the audience. There are many author's channels on YouTube that distribute various kinds of ideas and information. Some of the information may be dangerous and unverified, as well as violate the laws of the Russian Federation. The mechanisms of influence on the platform by the state, at the moment, are violated, because of this there is a problem with the spread of malicious information for the Russian society. Telegram is a messenger that over the past year has grown into something more than just a resource for communication and continues to grow steadily in the number of users. As an active user of the site, I can note the main advantages of Telegram, which influenced the popularity of the messenger in our region:

1. Each Telegram channel has its own news feed, which is convenient to view. Convenience is primarily associated with a well-designed and thoughtful interface of the application itself.

2. The ability to forward messages from other channels and mark the authors of these messages provides both authors and ordinary users with a simplified version of information dissemination.

3. Separately, I would like to note a fairly extensive functionality for the design of messages, both for the authors of Telegram channels and for users. The overall mix of all the functionality is unique for messengers in principle. Functions such as choosing the font type, hiding part of the text so that the user chooses whether to read this information, embedding links in the text, adding reactions to messages and posts – simplify and make it convenient to consume information through the news feed.

4. The format of receiving information in the messenger is presented as: text, video and audio, which is more interactive and communicative when compared with standard media.

5. Telegram bots. The programmed algorithm helps to understand the user's question and analyze further actions, thereby speeding up both feedback and the solution of the question itself.

Thus, Telegram can be called a practical and convenient application, both for communication and for obtaining information.

State entities in Telegram are represented by state bodies that conduct their own channels, covering their activities. The most popular are the Ministry of Defense of Russia with 500 thousand subscribers and the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Russia with 115 thousand subscribers. Information about the activities of the structure is distributed on the channels, unique photo and video reports are published, there are also bots through which you can get interesting information or make a request to the department. Also, state entities are represented in the form of individual politicians from the government, who will introduce their own author channels. Such authors as Vladimir Solovyov, Ramzan Kadyrov, Dmitry Medvedev have received special interest among the Russian audience and the number of daily views is breaking all records in our region. The authors of the channels express their opinion about the events taking place in the country and the world, while using an informal form of communication with their followers. These authors do not exist "in a vacuum". Their participation in the discussion and support of political decisions is largely determined in the party or hardware paradigm ^[9].

The author's subjects have also received an increase in the audience over the past year. Basically, these are channels dedicated to military and political topics, which will be introduced by both military personnel and war correspondents, as well as ordinary people who want to spread their vision to the ongoing processes in the world and the country. These channels were able to gain popularity thanks to expert evaluation, unique event comments and analytical product. The messenger functionality makes it possible to place the product of the author's expert activity: analytical reports, presentations, books, notes, slides, etc. Allows you to upload files with full-text studies and at the same time write introductory notes to them ^[8], when reposting, give comments, etc. The ecosystem of channels is branched and complex. Some channels attribute themselves to certain authors or teams of experts, which is presented to the user and gives introductory information about themselves, while others remain incognito. Some consider themselves to be a network of channels that are interconnected and carry a common political agenda, others may preach radical or marginal theses.

The platforms that are presented on the Internet are a new format with the population. Political communication moves away from the hierarchical system and spreads the idea of an informal style of communication. This phenomenon is noticeable not only in individual authors who express their own opinions, but also in government agencies that conduct their own channels. This leads to easier information acquisition and accessibility. The format of receiving information has changed, it has become easier for the user to find the political agenda that interests him and to mobilize around certain political actors ^{[7, 11]}. The growing role of political communication in Russia is associated with the growing interest of the population in the events that the country has faced recently. For the dissemination of political information, those sites are selected that have a large number of audiences and are the most convenient to use, both for the user and for political forces. Such platforms as YouTube and Telegram deserve special attention from political actors. YouTube is the leader in popularity among video hosting sites and there are currently no competitive analogues. Telegram, because of its practicality and convenience in obtaining information, qualitatively wins over other similar resources and is deservedly considered one of the best messengers for the dissemination of political agitation and activity. There has been a rapid growth of the audience on these resources over the past year, which is confirmed by the research of independent analytical companies. Political actors are actively embedded in these platforms, creating channels for the promotion of political information. Such political entities can be divided into two types: state and copyright. The state ones are aimed at solving the tasks of political and public administration, supporting the built vertical of power and forming the necessary image of power in the country. The authors are aimed at spreading the subjective image of the development of the country and society, and also conduct their activities on the basis of their own interests and benefits.

The events taking place on the Internet and the content broadcast in the online space are beginning to influence the work of traditional mass media more and more, determine the agenda of traditional mass media, the content and semantic components of their media activities and, consequently, influence the processes of media reality formation in the traditional space for large groups of the population ^[2], even non-Internet by users. Many events taking place in the Internet space become part of the information agenda in the traditional media space, having a significant impact on real processes in the field of politics.

Internet platforms provide a wide range of opportunities for organizing operational interactive communication with users who have the opportunity to directly participate in discussions and discussions, publish their opinions, exchange opinions with other users regardless of their territorial location and time of day. As a result, Internet resources acquire a higher potential in comparison with traditional mass media to attract politically active users.

Due to the high level of interactivity of information resources and the horizontal nature of communication between users and political actors, a more trusting attitude is formed towards the positions of various parties and the participants of discussions discussing a particular socially significant topic, in comparison with the traditional model of agitation and propaganda impact, which assumes purely vertical informing of representatives of target audiences without forming an effective interactive feedback channel with them ^[15].

Interactive capabilities of Internet resources allow you to create the effect of involvement in the communication process, namely, the Soft Power concept technologies are based on the principles of involvement in processes, one of the theorists of which was the American specialist Gene Sharp ^[5]. The interactivity of Internet resources acts as one of the factors influencing the possibilities of using soft power technologies in the processes of political influence.

Thus, we can conclude that at the moment the Internet is a unique space for the development of political communications, which is a unique phenomenon with its own characteristics, which has significant differences from the traditional dissemination of political information.