Sociotechnical reality of the digital space of contemporary politics: Structure and features

Abstract

The main purpose of the article was the analysis of experts’ ideas about the digital space of modern politics. The authors put forward a hypothesis about the formation of an independent ontological space of modern digital politics, which has its own principles of functioning. The intensive introduction of digital technologies into the modern practice of socio-political management, the active development of the global digital infrastructure lead today to the formation of a new type of sociotechnical reality and an independent phygital space of politics within which virtualized constructs, values, meanings are formed and communication interaction is transformed. In the digital space of politics, there is an algorithmization of power, with the help of which political institutions actively borrow corporate techniques of predictive analytics, ranking, filtering information to study target audiences, manage the political agenda and correct public sentiment; new hybrid actors with serious power potential and the ability to form the design of modern politics for their own purposes and interests appear in current political practice. To confirm the working hypothesis, the authors conducted an international expert survey, which allowed to study the views of experts on the features of the digitalization of modern politics and the characteristics of the emerging sociotechnical reality. The results of the study confirm the hypothesis, however, experts assess the speed and trends of the formation of this new type of policy in different ways. Based on the results of theoretical and empirical research, the authors highlight the key trends in the formation of the modern socio-technical space of politics.