Social Media and Political Sphere of Russia and the USA

Abstract

Internet technologies, including social networks, are becoming ever more present in the everyday life of citizens of both developed and developing countries. Political technologies ientered that environment almost from the very start. This article first discusses the general features of social networks, such as the ability to maintain constant fast communication between users, multimedia nature of the published content, lack of any user hierarchy, anonymity, the ability to filter the incoming data so that it meets the user's personal preferences, and the fragmented nature of the content users post. Then, the characteristics of social networks that are directly related to the political sphere are examined. This is a blurring of the boundaries between the private and public spheres, low susceptibility to government control and censorship, strong political polarization of social network users, prevalence of unskilled analysis and deliberately false political information. The authors further explore the political implications of social media use and the aspects of how to use their tools in politics. Here the authors deliberate about the possibility of communication between politicians and citizens without any intermediaries, targeted political campaigns, new ways of fundraising through social networks, supporters coordination prior to political rallies. The authors draw concrete examples of the practical use of social networks in politics, mainly from the experience of the presidential campaigns in the United States, since this country boasts a high degree of digitalization and political activity of the citizens as well as a strong civil society and well-developed political technologies. By contrast, some features of the political use of social networks in Russia, which the authors consider show that they are becoming increasingly important. However, due to the low competitiveness of the political system, inertia of the voters and other features, SMM strategies are much inferior to those based on the involvement of traditional media in terms of effectiveness. The authors conclude that social media have both positive and negative effects on modern political space and political culture. The positive ones include greater openness and transparency of politicians and new opportunities to hold them accountable, the ability to influence political life through collective action, in particular, drawing authorities’ attention to concerning issues. The most negative aspects include the manipulation of public opinion through microtargeting in the absence of transparency of funding sources and of mechanisms for collecting confidential user data, censorship of published political content by the social networks themselves, which is guided by vague principles, and the dissemination of deliberately false or unchecked or poorly supported by facts information.