Коммуникация студенческой молодежи с органами местного самоуправления в социальных медиа

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Digital technologies, including in the field of communication between government bodies and the population, are actively used in the context of achieving the goal of digital transformation. Young people use social networks in their everyday lives as forms, mechanisms, technologies of self-realization, self-expression, selfsearching and simply life. Students are one of the most active groups of young people who not only master professional competencies in the learning process, but also get involved in the socio-political agenda of their city, region, country. How familiar, understandable and natural is it for them to interact with local government bodies in social networks? The scientific problem of the study is the lack of empirically substantiated information on the attitude of students to the potential of digital communication with local public authorities in social networks. The authors use the Mix research strategy. The accounts of municipal administrations of the Sverdlovsk region (N=73), as well as the accounts of heads of municipalities (N=71) in the social network VK were analyzed using parsing tools. The data are supplemented by the results of qualitative in-depth interviews with student youth (N=26). The analysis showed that young people do not consider social networks as a channel for dialogue and two-way communication with local governments due to low awareness of the existence of municipal administration accounts in social networks, lack of understanding of how to build a dialogue through this channel and low trust in this communication channel as effective, lack of examples of constructive solutions to issues through social networks. At the same time, the involvement of young people in communication in social networks is higher in the personal accounts of heads of municipalities, but, at the same time, there are fewer young people subscribed to such accounts. To build a dialogue with municipal authorities through social networks, it is necessary to demonstrate to youth the possibilities of communication with municipal administrations in social networks in the context of not only openness and transparency of power, but also involvement in the development and adoption of management decisions.