The impact of digital tools on conflict communications in the "power-society" system: the experience of Russian regions

The article is devoted to the analysis of the influence of digital tools on conflict communications in the "power-society" system. This issue is considered in the context of interaction between city and regional administrations and the population using the example of communication in official communities of state structures on the VKontakte social network. The article describes in more detail the digital tools applicable in the political sphere, as well as its capabilities in the modern world. Examples of the use of digital tools in Russia are given. The authors pay special attention to how the development of a conflict situation changes when using digital tools such as social networks and regional management centers, namely the Incident Management program. The purpose of the study is to establish the nature of the dynamics of conflict development (escalation or de-escalation) within the digital space. The basic research method is sentiment analysis. It is based on a one-dimensional emotive space and allows to determine the intensity of the impact of digital tools on the development or attenuation of conflict. The empirical basis of the study is the materials and comments of the official social media of the regional and city administrations of the Russian Federation. The main conclusions of the study are to determine the impact of digital tools on the dynamics of conflicts, namely, to identify the aggravating nature of interaction. A special contribution of the authors to the study is to identify the causes of inefficiency of conflict communication on the part of representatives of government agencies (duplication, depersonalization, use of templates, excessive moderation, etc.). Based on the study, the most successful practices of conflict communication were identified, which could lead to de-escalation of the conflict situation (visual argumentation, two-way type of communication, specificity, orientation to the person, etc.).The scientific novelty of the work consists in the scalability of the study, after testing the research methodology on the example of the St. Petersburg Government page, the second stage of the study was carried out in a similar way in other regions of Russia, which made it possible to specify the results.