The Influence of Social Networks on the Development of Political Communications in the New Digital Reality

Abstract

The article analyzes the aspects and problems of the influence of social networks on the development of politi-cal communications in the new digital reality. The concept of social networks is introduced, aspects of their im-pact on political communications and processes are characterized. Separately, the possibilities of the positive influence of social networks on the development of political communications in the new digital reality are re-vealed, and new threats and risks are also examined. Considering the factor of Russia’s involvement in a hy-brid, including informational, war with the collective West, a typology of social networks is proposed, including the criteria for blocking and possible reserves of popularity of political communications. The influence of differ-ent types of social networks and the factor of their blocking on the features and risks of political communica-tions is revealed, the specifics of communication activity in social networks with increasing and decreasing popularity are analysed. The mechanisms of political communications in the most preferred social networks for this are shown – VKontakte and Telegram. The necessity of activation of political communications aimed at young audience in TikTok, as well as on the basis of serious longreads on the platform “Zen” is argued. Measures are proposed for organizing political communications in social networks, including taking into ac-count the risk factors of outsourcing.