Social Media and Political Communication: Studying the Interactive Component

Abstract

The study purpose is to examine the measure of popularity of separate interactive components of political discourse delivery through social media in the modern Russian Federation. The research methodology builds on an empirical approach through a door-to-door survey. It involved a total number of 1,000 residents of Moscow, the Russian Federation. Respondents were divided into 5 groups of 200 people. They had to choose one of the following types of social media as the most frequently used: social networks, online video platforms (OVPs), blogs, and messengers. Accordingly, the research results demonstrated that social networks are the most popular (53.4%) among study participants. Less number of respondents (19%) consider messengers effective, 15.4% of study participants find video hosting the most significant type of social media, and only 12.2% believe that blogs are the most effective among others. Furthermore, the following factors determined the interactive component of political discourse in social media: the involvement of respondents regarding the participation in online voting, commenting and reposting content (48%), maintaining a blog with a political intent (34%), and refusal to participate in political dialogue (18%). The research results may contribute to further study regarding the behavioral features of media platform users and ways to establish communication between government structures and the public. It may also grant improving the methods of psychological influence on the citizen worldview within political science. The research has a practical significance as the results obtained may facilitate lobbying the interests of political subjects and develop campaigning activities.