Country Communication Regime as a Socio-Political Phenomenon

Abstract

The article examines a new scientific category of communication regime, analyses its scope, socio-political significance and features. The author describes communication regime as a controlled (with varying degree of controllability), institutionalized (with varying degree of institutionalization), conventional (with varying degree of conventionality) system of norms, rules, principles, traditions, structures, and actors that regulates information and communication processes. The immanent components of the communication regimes are communications (the process and the result of establishing two- or multilateral contacts) and information (the messages transmitted in the process of communication or in a one-way, unidirectional process of informing). The social essence of the communication regime lies in the ordering of communication and information, and the political essence in ensuring the reproduction of the current government, which together allows the system to preserve itself. The social essence of the communication regime lies in the harmonisation of communication and information, the political essence is in ensuring the reproduction of the current government, which in aggregate allows the system to preserve itself. The construction of communication regimes occurs by: (1) institutionalizing the ideas of the subjects of power about the ideal model of organizing information and communication processes in society; (2) consociations regarding the historically established norms and traditions of communication; (3) taking into account the interests of large and significant social groups; (4) adaptation of the current regime to new communication practices. Communication modes have complex subject-object relationships in which objects can become subjects and change the current regime. The author reveals the paradoxes and contradictions of communication modes, the underestimation of which can lead to social and political destabilization. A model for a comprehensive analysis of country communication regimes is proposed, developed by the author under the influence of systemic, institutional approaches, the ideas of constructivists, and taking into account the possibilities of the empirical level of research, fixation and pooling of scientific facts.