This article is devoted to analysis of the processes of development of modern information and communication technologies and the transformation of the modern information society that accompany a transition to the new paradigm of a network communications society. The author describes the fundamentally new role of online resources as a tool for the creation of social communication relations, which become a new form of socio-political and economic capitalization and acquire independent value. The article maintains that communication itself takes on independent meaning and political significance, affecting the perception of the information conveyed via communication technologies. The author concludes that the transformation of the socio-political structure of modern states is inevitable.
Challenges and threats associated with information technology and the inequality of modern states take on a new meaning in this context due to the fact that technologically advanced nations have significant opportunities for large-scale extraterritorial impact on the population of target states with lower technological potential.

This article focuses on issues related to the study of the characteristics of the application of contemporary mass Internet communication technologies in order to create a virtual social and political reality. In the critical analysis of classical concepts of the Internet as a free space communication. It showcased the technology used in the processes of virtualization concepts of mass socio-political reality. As a result of research work concluded that the virtualization process of modern political management particularly vivid expression obtained in the Internet space in which was formed a powerful arsenal of tools and technology substitution of real objects, processes and phenomena of their distorted virtual models. Functional and semantic load in terms of coverage of virtualization and modern political space has been steadily transferred to the virtual space, which by virtue of its originally-designed publicity direct impact on the formation of mass political values, meanings, world views and understanding of the political reality. This formed the political representation in the majority of cases are significantly biased towards real political reality, however, they act as true for society.

This work aims to analyze the results of an international expert study devoted to identifying global trajectories of political transformations in the contemporary world, characterized by high instability and uncertainty. The main scientifi c task was to determine the key contours of the emerging new world order and the critical threats, challenges and risks associated with this process facing humanity today. The study examines the key factors contributing to the current political destabilization at the global level, as well as the dominant trends of contemporary global development. The special place in the study is given to the Russian prospects in the system of the new world order. An essential part of the study is devoted to scrutinizing the formation of new socio-political ideologies and the corresponding value components. An equally important section of the study is the analysis of the contemporary model of globalization and the construction of scenarios for its transformation, including the emergence of new global development actors. The use of methods for combining expert assessments and scenario techniques made it possible to make scientifi cally signifi cant conclusions on the problems of the study.

The article’s primary purpose was to identify relevant scientific approaches, models, and scenarios for digitalizing the space of contemporary policy. To solve the work tasks, we used discourse analysis, critical analysis and predictive scripting. According to the research results, the authors could identify the essential effects of current technological transformations that ensure the close interweaving of the traditional political space and the digital environment into a single digital space of politics, claiming to form an independent phygital socio-technical reality. Among the key areas of transformation of the space of traditional politics, we can include the intensive digital algorithmization of the socio-political sphere of the life of the modern state and society, the emergence of digital intellectual actants, as well as alternative subjects of digital politics, to which we primarily include global technology corporations. Based on the study results, the authors describe a scenario for forming hybrid state-technological regimes that combine the resources of political power, digital infrastructures and technologies into a single subject of socio-political governance of a new type.

This study aims to determine the extent of the substantive nature of the dependence of contemporary state sovereignty on technological development in the field of artificial intelligence and neural network technologies, as well as to identify new socio-political challenges to Russia’s state sovereignty in the context of global digital technological transformations. As a methodological lens, the method of critical discourse analysis of thematic academic studies was chosen, as well as the method of expert interviews. This made it possible to more deeply reveal the substantive features of influence of artificial intelligence technologies and neural network algorithms’ development processes on the contemporary state sovereignty parameters. Based on the results of the study, by the aggregation of the results obtained, the authors concluded that a whole range of challenges to the sovereignty of the contemporary state related to technological development in the digital sphere has formed, as well as there is the high influence of digital technological development processes on the state sovereignty of Russia. The main challenge for our country is the thesis that a state unable to create independent and competitive technologies, products, and solutions in the digital sphere will inevitably be in direct technological dependence on other states, which directly affects the ability to provide its own sovereignty and independence.

The main goal of this article was to identify the potential and features of the use of digital actants and computational propaganda technologies in contemporary processes of digital socio-political communication. Current digital technological transformations and the rapid evolution of artificial intelligence technologies are powerful factors and drivers of the development of digital actants — software and hardware systems operating on the basis of the use of neural network algorithms and taking an active part in the processes of digital socio-political communication. In this regard, such new type of actants require careful study by specialists and scientists. In the framework of this work, the methodological basis of the study was the methods of discourse analysis, case study, and expert survey, which made it possible to confirm the results we obtained. The work demonstrates that digital actants have a substantial potential to impact mass consciousness and behavior. It is determined by the high efficiency of algorithmically adapted information and communication influence from “smart” communicative actants on the target audiences’ consciousness. Such potential is based on the algorithmic analysis of users’ digital traces and the identification of subjective features and characteristics of the latter. Based on the results of the work, it is concluded that contemporary digital technological transformations create a significant potential for computational and propaganda wars in the digital environment between global political actors. This circumstance leads us to the thesis about the need to ensure state technological sovereignty in the digital space.

This article is based on the definition of politics as a specific type of activity by actors (officials, professional politicians, and the ruling political elite) concerning power, its acquisition, and retention through methods and technologies legitimized by society through accessible expression of will on the one hand, and as a system of interactions between the state (power) and society (its organizations, institutions and individuals) — on the other. In this work, public policy is understood as a political course, legally and legitimately implemented by institutions of state power, which defines the target objectives alongside with the value foundations of specific areas of activity administration. At the same time, the character and features of the functioning of a particular state and society, as well as the content of the policies being implemented, are determined primarily by their civilizational foundations.
Based on an analysis of the current situation related to the functioning of contemporary states, the authors have made a conclusion that these states have lost their original pro-social nature and orientation toward public good achievement. This work argues that the prolonged transformation of the substantive and functional characteristics of state systems and institutions has led to the formation of the state’s own self-sufficient hierarchies, goals, values and interests, which often not only ignore and contradict public interests, values and goals but also have a distinctly antisocial character. Political elite capturing public policy leads to a deep crisis in the state-society interactions system and negative consequences for social development. The article places particular emphasis on the state’s use of modern digital technologies and algorithms, which predominantly act as new tools for manipulating public consciousness, covertly appropriating power, and legitimizing such appropriation, leading to a form of “comfortable totalitarianism.”