Media images of Russian political parties in the network: the semantics of digital streams
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.47475/2070-0695-2026-60-2-62-72Keywords:
media image, political party, digital streams, discursive practice, VK network, semantic coreAbstract
The article analyzes and evaluates the effectiveness of shaping the online media image of political parties represented by factions in the Russian parliament. The relevance of the study is determined by the significance of media representation of parties in the run-up to the elections to the State Duma of the Russian Federation in September 2026. The study examines the semantic features of discursive practices within the digital streams generated by the VK networks of political actors and by engaged users commenting on their content. The research methodology comprises a comprehensive analysis, which includes: identifying the semantic core of relevant content through frequency assessments; and determining the specific features of media representation of parties (the Communist Party of the Russian Federation (KPRF), the Liberal Democratic Party of Russia (LDPR), A Just Russia – For Truth (SRZP), and New People (NL)) on the VKontakte platform (the number of agents in their network and the size of their audience). Audience characteristics are examined in terms of gender and age structure, commenting activity, degree of ideological orientation, and value orientation. The level of success of the strategy for constructing the media image of parties is determined by the degree of semantic similarity between the digital streams of the political actors’ network agents and the ideological orientation indicator of the consumer audience. The empirical basis of the study comprises 2,300 VK communities with a total audience of 1.6 million users and a content volume of 5,500 items. The time frame for the analysis covers a randomly selected period of one month (from April 1, 2025, to May 1, 2025). In carrying out the research, a methodology developed by the authors was tested. This methodology made it possible to identify a correlation between the indicators of the ideological attitudes of the audience of political parties’ network agents and the degree of similarity of the semantic cores of their media texts with user comments.
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