Moscow University Bulletin. Series 12. Political Science. 2023. 6.

The article is based on the analysis of the discussion that have taken place at the Department of Politics of Lomonosov Moscow State University on May 25, 2023. Participants represented different academic fields: political science, history, sociology, psychology, communication studies. The discussion was going around a question whether one can see serious transformations not only in the current political moods but also in deeper layers of public mind, especially in values, identity, mentality that constitute the basis of national self-consciousness. In Political psychology these phenomena are interpreted as particular mental matrixes that can be described as stable clusters of citizens’ images and representations of themselves, their country and the world in general, their Present, Past and Future.
Today we are visually transforming as a nation. These swings concern first of all the deeper layers of public mind that take place at the background of tectonic changes in political, cultural, economic, technological and communication spheres of public life. These swings give rise to serious social risks and challenges as well as to new opportunities of political development of the country.
There were several main points of discussion. The first concerned the issue of methodological equipment of socio-humanitarian knowledge for interpretation of those transformations. The second issue of discussion was focused on the changes on Russian national identity and interpretation of the factors that determine transformation of values and identity.

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 article is devoted to the theoretical substantiation of the need to ensure digital sovereignty in order to preserve the subjectivity of the Russian state in the processes of identity formation, ensuring information security, the integrity of the value-semantic space and the consolidation of society. Using a constructivist approach to the interpretation of the phenomenon of macropolitical identity, the author explores the features of nation-building and the identification process in post-Soviet Russia. Based on the analysis of the risks and challenges that accompany global digitalization at the present stage, the author substantiates the relevance of implementing a comprehensive state policy in the field of digital sovereignty in order to protect the consolidating Russian identity, which today is the model of the “state-civilization”.

The article is devoted to the consideration of the national features of the Russian political process in the context of deep mediatization, in which socio-political actors are embedded in digital infrastructures belonging to global Internet companies with their own political and legal subjectivity, as well as significant resources of influence. Understanding deep mediatization as a new stage of mediatization, during which digital media and the underlying infrastructures penetrate into all elements of public life, the authors study the current situation of global Internet companies in Russia as new subjects of political influence in the context of deep mediatization and identify problem issues associated with the regulation of their activities. With the help of content analysis, messages concerning the activities of global Internet companies were studied and problematic aspects of regulating their activities in Russia were identified. The comparative analysis revealed a shift in accents in the interaction of state authorities of the Russian Federation and global Internet companies in the context of deep mediatization and the current political situation. As a result of the study, the authors identify a number of interrelated trends describing the national features of the Russian political process in the context of deep mediatization, and also highlight the prospects for the evolution of the situation.

The article presents the results of a socio-political study of digital activism of Russian youth. The launch of the special military operation in Ukraine and the events that followed acted as a catalyst for the activation of various digital practices by youth groups. At a time of heightened global tensions, the extent and nature of young people’s immersion in the digital environment creates both significant risks for state and public institutions associated with the spread of destructive attitudes and controlled attempts at protest mobilization, and new opportunities determined by improved political communication and the formation of a digital dialogue with young people. The theoretical framework of the study is conditioned by the gradual transformation of the concepts of ‘digital citizenship’ which are moving towards technological and informational sovereignty. The methodology of the study is based on a combination of network and cognitive approaches. The algorithm of data collection, processing and analysis included the use of cognitive mapping of content to collect markers of youth civic and political activity, automated social media analysis of information flows, and subsequent verification of digital data through polygraph testing with elements of focused interviewing. According to the results of the study, the dominance in the information space of the flows supporting the current political course and the implemented state policy was concluded. At the same time, their visibility is limited by the significant disintegration of the audience and the lack of transformation of their activity into real practices. Critical information flows of an oppositional orientation are characterized by controllability and functionality. Such a situation creates conditions for external information pressure on vulnerable groups of young people, spreading destructive, fake and manipulative content. The study also identified structural trends in the development of information flows of youth civic engagement, the peculiarities of physiological reactions to popular political content. The basic recommendations based on the results of the work are focused on the improvement of technologies of interaction with young people by state and public institutions.

Cancel culture is an Internet term of the beginning of the 21st century, which implies the prevention of public communication and public censure of a person who has committed an immoral act in a modern network society. The research methodology involves descriptive, comparative-historical methods. The purpose of the article is to define the concept of cancel culture, to consider its main characteristics and specific examples. Due to changes in modern society, cancel culture has become an important accelerator of many destructive processes. Cancel culture is superimposed on the phenomenon of “cultural wars” that destroys the identity of the United States. The polarization of society on ethical issues and the possibility of automatically discrediting one’s political opponents have created a constantly developing destructive mechanism in society. Within the framework of the network society, the cancel culture actualizes the old institutional contradictions of the United States. Elites use cancel culture to advance a right or left agenda in historical memory. But the polarization of society intensifies the existential crisis, which leads to the collapse of basic institutions. In addition, cancel culture began to manifest itself in both foreign and domestic US policy.