Social relations and self-presentation of the youth political leaders of Altai krai and Novosibirsk oblast in VKontakte social media

The object. The article is dedicated to the research of self-presentation and social relations of the youth political leaders in VKontakte (VK) social media in Siberian Federal District by example of Altai krai and Novosibirsk oblast. This includes the analysis of social and political capital of the youth political organisations’ leaders in online environment. The goal of this research is to distinguish the forms and contents of self-presentation, the image of the youth political leaders, basing on their social relations and communications in VK. For this purpose, the author uses the TargetHunter parcer, as well as the R programming language for the open data harvesting, and Gephi program to create the social media graph. Conclusion. Basing on the research results, the author concludes that the youth political leaders actively use social media resources, particularly VK, to shape their image and promote it in public affairs. Meanwhile, the process of self-presentation of such leaders is impacted by numerous variables. It also tends to change its forms. VK is especially effective for political activity of the leaders who strive to gain their personal social capital, to create unique and high quality content, and to create channels for steady communication with their primary audience. As for the youth political organisations’ heads, their social media space is more miscellaneous and is usually subjected to clasterization, creating groups. The youth leaders also represent similar social environment. Therefore, the environment creates the leaders, as much as the leaders create the environment.

social media analysis, youth political leaders, political leadership, social relations, self-presentation