Information Risks in the Conditions of Interaction Between Power and Society

Section: Theory of Journalism and Media

The article is aimed at identifying some risks emerging in the process of communicative and informational interaction between government bodies and society, which can result in information and social apathy among the population and, ultimately, lead to a decrease in the government’s authority in the society. The introduction to the paper brings forth the idea of the necessity for government bodies, willing to establish effective communicative interaction with the society based on the use of new information transfer forms, to adapt the applied communication models taking into account their characteristics. The subject of the research is the models of the Vologda region government’s information interaction in the process of constructing a discourse with the society in the Internet space. In carrying out the research, comparative analysis methods were used to distinguish between coincidences and specific features of the communication practices applied on various media platforms. In order to highlight the main meanings in the materials posted by the regional government bodies on the Internet, the method of content analysis was used. To identify the effectiveness of the current discourse of power and society, the method of reconstructing the image of the addressee, to whom the information content is directed, was applied in the research. The authors came to the conclusion that in the conditions of excessive political influence, new publicity forms introduced by the government authorities in the Internet space, require to be adapted for their application based on the use of traditional communication channels. Otherwise, public consciousness is likely to develop social apathy, which may be caused, among other reasons, by a loss of interest in the life of the region, since only events and facts are recorded in the information flow without explaining their economic feasibility for the residents.

DOI: 10.30547/vestnik.journ.4.2021.3351

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