Blogging As a Technology of Regional Social and Political Communication: The Krasnodar Region

Abstract

This article is devoted to the identifi cation of the specifi cs of blogging as a technology of public and political communication at the level of the Russian region. The authors address three research tasks: a comparison of the use of blogging as a tool and as a socio-communicative technology; identifi cation of the features of the event-thematic agenda in the blogosphere of the region; and a segmentation of the audience of political blogs in the province. Blogging in the region is characterized by identifying and analyzing the activities of the subjects that most shape the eventthematic agenda online. The authors demonstrate that the tendency of using blogging as a technology of political communication is becoming increasingly characteristic for Russian regions; this implies a signifi cant expansion of the tools used. The article further maintains that elections are becoming a kind of “growth point” for the political blogosphere of the region, a platform for testing new formats of political communication in the online environment. Further, the limitations of blogging as a socio-communicative technology in terms of the impact on regional communities are discussed and a defi nition of blogging is off ered that accounts for the subjective interests of bloggers.

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