Transformations of Professional Political Communications in the Digital Society (by the Example of the Fake News Communication Strategy)

Abstract

The report is focused on the analysis of revolutionary changes taking place in the field of professional political communications of the digital society. The purpose of this research is to study the specific features of the emergence and evolution context of the “Fake news” communication technology. The methodological basis for the analysis is the multiparadigm approach, which allows to combine heuristic potentials of the system-sociological methodology, interactive approach and theory of communicative action. Secondary sources devoted to the problems of modern political communications, as well as thematic content of social networks such as Twitter, Facebook, VKontakte, etc., were the empirical base. The following results were obtained during the performed analysis. Firstly, in recent years the toolkit of modern political communications has been expanding, which testifies to the development of a well-known “electronic or monitoring democracy”, which sometimes is referred to as a democracy of inclusive observation over the activities of ruling political class. At the same time, the mass media are increasingly interfacing with the political space in terms of the use of new information technologies in political communications. Secondly, the role of social media as a channel of political communication is growing. Within the framework of these media, social networks playing a growing role in the political mobilization of masses are becoming the most popular. Thereby, political actors obtain a possibility to coordinate their actions. Thirdly, advertising of political communications takes place. It is expressed in the subordination of political and communication interactions to the laws of advertising business concerning formation of political image of famous leaders. Advertising is supplemented by marketing of political communications, which consists in its impact on electorate by means of resources of “personal”, “software” and “information” influence in order to gain a place in the state and municipal power system. It is ac-companied by distortion and fabrication of facts, tendentious and one-sided editing of misinfor-mation, discrediting of opponents with abnormal rhetoric, labelling and trolling. Three conditions described above constitute the context thanks to which, the “fake news” influence increasingly on political communications. The term “Fake news” is recognized as an expression of 2017 and refers to knowingly false, sensational information disseminated under the guise of news, which also includes the biased journalism, propaganda, hidden advertising, “post-telling” and trolling. Features of the “Fake news” communication technology are the following: high speed of distribution of such messages, wider coverage of audience, difficulties of their identification. Different countries, de-spite the national, cultural and political differences, are trying to fight against the fake news both jointly and separately. In order to limit the impact of the “Fake news” on modern political communications, active countermeasures are being taken by social networks themselves (e.g. Facebook labels them as controversial). However, notable results have not yet been achieved. As a result, fakes have become a threat not only to the mass media and democracy as a whole, but also started to create “obstacles” for political and communication interaction between the real political actors. Researchers have to make additional efforts to analyse online reports in order to ensure the reliability of information disseminated and guarantee that it does not involve fake misinformation.