Strategies of self-presentation of heads of russian regions in internet social networks: key features, effectiveness (on the example of vkontakte profiles)

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Abstract

The social resources of the Web 2.0 era provide political actors with a wide range of opportunities to influence public opinion. At the same time, the new media impose demands that media strategies cannot succeed without. Therefore, political actors are forced to adapt new ways of presenting themselves to others in the course of Internet communication. The purpose of the study is to identify the peculiarities of self-presentation strategies used by the heads of the subjects of the Russian Federation in social media. The research method is deductive content analysis of publications (N = 400) on the walls of personal profiles of S.S. Sobyanin, R.A. Kadyrov, A.S. Nikitin, A.L. Teksler, O.A. Nikolaev, I.I. Kobzev, A.S. Tsydenov, and M.V. Razvozhayev in the VKontakte network. It was found that politicians use a balanced way of presenting themselves, combining the tactics of professionalization, association with citizens, demonstration of interaction with the authorities, and coverage of private life. Self-presentations emphasize the positive effects of professional activity and positive interaction with citizens.

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About the authors

Ivan V. Soldatenkov

St. Petersburg State University (SPbSU)

Author for correspondence.
Email: ivn256@yandex.ru
ORCID iD: 0000-0003-0845-603X

postgraduate student, Department of Political Institutions and Applied Political Science

Russian Federation, Saint Petersburg

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2. Fig. 1. Model of self-presentation of heads of constituent entities of the Russian Federation

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3. Fig. 2. Quantitative distribution of tactics: 1 – professionalization; 2 – association with citizens; 3 – interaction with the authorities; 4 – coverage of private life

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4. Fig. 3. Average performance of tactics by number of likes to the Kraskell–Wallace criterion for independent samples: 1 – professionalization; 2 – association with citizens; 3 – coverage of private life; 4 – interaction with the authorities

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5. Fig. 4. Average performance of tactics by number of comments to the Kraskell–Wallace criterion for independent samples: 1 – professionalization; 2 – association with citizens; 3 – coverage of private life; 4 – interaction with the authorities

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