Practices for Self-Representation Governors of the Russian Federation in Virtual Social Networks

The article substantiates the idea of transformation of public policy in modern Russia, which is associated with the processes of digitalization of both power structures and the population as a whole. Practices of self-representation of governors in the virtual network space are considered. Based on an original approach based on the methodological principles of P. Lazarsfeld, J. Habermas, P. Bourdieu, and E. Goffman examines the popularity of the accounts, the frequency of their updates, the level of social approval records, feedback, etc., and also visual settings — formal or informal nature of the shooting the main photo in the profile, the social distance on it, head position and gaze, emotional background. We use our own data collected in December 2019. Based on the information received, it is concluded that representatives of the Governor’s corps and users of virtual social networks understand the importance of digital transformations of public policy, although this is not directly expressed in expert assessments of their activities. In some cases, governors are effective leaders of public opinion, whose number of subscribers exceeds the audience of many regional traditional media. Also, many of them create conditions for an equal dialogue with the population, independently or with the help of assistants responding to incoming requests.