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This article is devoted to analyzing the results of a study conducted by the Educational and Scientific Laboratory of Internet Projects and Studies of the Department of Political Science and Mass Communications of the Financial University among university students. The work aimed to identify the characteristics and structure of youth information consumption in the digital space during the COVID-19 pandemic. The authors analyzed the intensity and frequency of use of various types of information sources, identified the dominant sources of socio-political information, determining the level of trust in them, identified factors that affect the perception of message content. The article also analyzes the attitude of the respondents to the issue of Internet regulation by the state, defines and structures the subjective assessments of the opposition of the Internet space concerning existing government institutions. The paper concludes that the structure of the information consumption of the respondents shows a steady shift in the emphasis on information and communication activity of young people to digital platforms, sources, and channels. The youth audience spends a significant part of their active time in the digital space, which in its volume is comparable or even in many cases exceeds the amount of time spent in the traditional offline space. The consequence of this is the formation of digital information overload, stimulating the development and consolidation of the effect of clip consciousness. In general, based on the results of the work, the authors conclude that there is a stable structure of youth information consumption that has pronounced differences from the traditional structure of information consumption of older generations. Moreover, the processes of information consumption in the digital space are mostly irrational, and they are mainly based on digital habits that form the models of digital information consumption of modern students.

The purpose of this article was to identify the potential of state-corporate hybridization as one of the scenarios for the transformation of traditional political regimes. Based on the application of the methods of critical analysis and case study, the author researches the practice of adapting political regimes to the conditions of current technological transformations and the growth of the complexity of controlled socio-political systems. The results of the study allow us to confirm the hypothesis that, in order to ensure the stability and survival of national political regimes, with a high degree of probability, technologically developed states will implement scenarios of «absorption» of existing digital technologies in their own interests in order to increase their own diversity and complexity of the system of public and political administration. At the same time, the paper concludes that, in order to maintain their functionality in the new conditions of a changing technological environment, the traditional institutions of power will strive to implement the scenario of strict regulation, regulation, and restriction of the activities of global technology companies, which pose a significant threat to the political stability of the state. The alternative scenario is to integrate technological giants in state and political management processes, to include their essential resources and technologies (with subsequent implementation at a practical level) in the «smart» models of state and political management of a new type. At the same time, the author of the article expresses profound skepticism about the potential of using digital technologies in the processes of democratization of modern societies in the case of the implementation of the scenario of state-corporate hybridization, finding in digitalization a significant range of threats, risks, and challenges for contemporary social development in conditions of current technological turbulence.

November 20, 2020, at the Lomonosov Moscow State University the all-Russian scientific conference with international participation «State policy in the context of global challenges of modernity» was held, timed to the 10th anniversary of the Department of State Policy, Faculty of Political Science, Moscow University. Within the framework of the conference, which was attended by scientists and specialists from Russia, the USA, Bulgaria and Kazakhstan, a plenary session and several section meetings devoted to the problems of modern public policy were held. This review paper presents the key materials presented in the reports and determined the course and content of the scientific and expert discussion within the section «New subjects and technologies of state policy: current practice and prospects», in which scientists, specialists and experts from the Lomonosov Moscow State University, Moscow State Regional University, Russian State University for the Humanities, National Research Tomsk University, L.N. Gumilyov Eurasian National University (Nur-Sultan, Kazakhstan), as well as University of Plovdiv Paisii Hilendarski (Plovdiv, Bulgaria). The principles of comparative studies, Case Study, content analysis, Big Data were used as methodological opticians. Within the framework of the «Incommunicado» case, the limits of the spread of this new type of communications are outlined. The conclusions emphasize that digitalization and technological transformations of the main spheres of functioning of the modern state and society are accompanied by the emergence of fundamentally new political actors claiming power resources. These processes form nonlinear effects that affect the content, functionality and structure of the activities of modern states, as well as the parameters of the functioning of national political regimes.

The purpose of this work is to study the content, structure and functions of the phenomenon of digital sovereignty, which is primarily associated with the active introduction of digital communication technologies into the current political and socio-economic practice, acting as an influential factor in transforming modern approaches to understanding and ensuring national sovereignty as in political, and in the economic dimensions, as well as generating global challenges and risks in the field of geopolitical security of modern states. The object of the research was modern extraterritorial and distributed digital technologies, which are currently actively used in socio-political and socio-economic practice. The subject of the research - peculiarities of the transformation of the structural, functional and substantive content of the phenomenon of national digital sovereignty in the context of digitalization of the socio-political and economic spheres of its life vital for the state. The paper analyzes the current practice of digitalization of modern states and societies, based on which the key risks, challenges and threats are identified that are of most significant importance in the formation and provision of national digital sovereignty in the context of modern technological transformations. Acknowledgments: The reported study was funded by RFBR and EISR, project number 20-011-31396. Acknowledgments: The reported study was funded by RFBR and EISR, project number 20-011-31396.

This work aims to study the peculiarities of digital society development in Russia and Bulgaria in the context of the COVID-19 pandemic. In order to solve this task the authors used a variety of methods, namely comparative analysis, critical analysis, and case-stage method. The article analyzes the experience of the socio-political processes of digitalization in Russia and Bulgaria in the context of the self-isolation regime formation in both countries. The authors put forward a hypothesis that both countries have found themselves in recent months in the conditions of forced digitalization, which has left its mark on the processes of the natural evolution of digital society. The results of the study give ground to conclude that forced digitalization lies mainly in the intensification and randomization of digital communication flows, but not in the qualitative development of a digital society and the emergence of new technological solutions that could contribute to effective and meaningful socio-political development. The practical significance of the work lies in the comprehension of the current processes of the socio-political sphere’s digitalization and identifying key problems and challenges, without which it is impossible to successfully solve the problems of the transition of contemporary society to a new stage of its evolution in the digital environment.

The study aims to analyze the specifics of determining the subjects of digital social and political communication in the context of the development of artificial intelligence technologies and neural network algorithms. The work uses a case-study design. As a research methodology, the method of critical analysis of the digital communications practice in the socio-political sphere, as well as discourse analysis of modern scientific research in the field of the development of artificial intelligence and neural network algorithms, are used. It is concluded that the implementation of technological solutions based on artificial intelligence and neural network algorithms into the processes of socio-political communications creates a problem of defining the subject of communication acts in the socio-political sphere. Society may face such communication practices in which hybrid subjectness is realized. In the conditions of hybrid subjectness, both real subjects and programmed neural network algorithms acting as real subjects (but only imitating own subjectivity) interact in common communication space. The originality of the work lies in the formulation of the author's hypothesis about the emergence of the phenomenon of hybrid subjectness in the space of modern socio-political communications and its potential in the aspect of influencing the mass consciousness of citizens.

This article focuses on issues related to the use of Internet communications technology for destabilization and change the current national political regimes. The paper analyzes the international political practice of using Internet technologies in the format of organizing color revolutions. Based on the results of the study, a conclusion was made on the significant potential of information and propaganda influence in the Internet space on the parameters of the functioning of modern political regimes.

The article analyzes the phenomenon of digital interference with national political systems in the conditions of the modern information society and the evolution of the Internet as a space of political communications. It is shown that digital intervention is relevant but at the same time a complex multidimensional phenomenon of contemporary politics. In many respects, the potential of the digital interference phenomenon is closely related to the substantive and functional features of the functioning and transformation of the contemporary Internet, which has been actively used when changing political regimes in many countries. The initiatives of countries to form the sovereign national segments of the Internet space are, on the one hand, an attempt to protect their political systems from external influence and invasion, to ensure their own political stability, and on the other hand, they pose risks to the democratic potential of the Internet. The article substantiates the thesis that the phenomenon of interference with elections in actual practice often becomes not so much an objective process as an instrument of information warfare, mass political propaganda and discredit of political opponents, a manipulative tool that can be actively used not only by authoritarian regimes with a low level of democratic development. It is noted that differences in understanding and defining the essence of the Internet by various countries give rise to a significant potential for political conflicts on a global scale. This leads the author to conclude that it is necessary to form institutions that are able to prevent and regu- late information conflicts in the Internet space, as well as reduce global political risks (including risks associated with potential interference in the electoral process of sovereign states), forming a collective responsibility in the functioning of the global Internet. Artykuł analizuje zjawisko ingerencji cyfrowej w krajowe systemy polityczne w warunkach współczesnego społeczeństwa informacyjnego oraz ewolucję Internetu jako przestrzeni komunikacji politycznej. Wykazano, że interwencja cyfrowa to istotne i jednocześnie złożone, wielowymiarowe zjawisko współczesnej polityki. Pod wieloma względami potencjał zjawiska zakłóceń cyfrowych jest ściśle związany z merytorycznymi i funkcjonalnymi cechami działania i transformacji współczesnego Internetu, który jest aktywnie wykorzystywany przy zmianie ustrojów politycznych w wielu krajach. Inicjatywy krajów zmierzające do utworzenia suwerennych krajowych segmentów przestrzeni internetowej są – z jednej strony – podejmowaną w celu zapewnienia sobie stabilności politycznej próbą ochrony swoich systemów politycznych przed wpływami zewnętrznymi i inwazją, a z drugiej strony, stanowią ryzyko dla demokratycznego potencjału Internetu. Artykuł uzasadnia tezę, że w praktyce zjawisko ingerencji w wybory często staje się nie tyle obiektywnym procesem, co narzędziem wojny informacyjnej, masowej propagandy politycznej i dyskredytacji przeciwników politycznych oraz narzędziem manipulacji, które może być aktywnie wykorzystywane nie tylko przez reżimy autorytarne o niskim poziomie rozwoju demokratycznego. Podkreślono, że różnice w rozumieniu i definiowaniu istoty Internetu przez różne kraje powodują znaczny potencjał konfliktów politycznych w skali globalnej. Prowadzi to autora do wniosku, że konieczne jest utworzenie instytucji zdolnych do zapobiegania konfliktom informacyjnym w przestrzeni internetowej i ich regulowania, a także do ograniczania globalnego ryzyka politycznego (w tym ryzyka związanego z potencjalną ingerencją w proces wyborczy suwerennych państw) i formowania zbiorowej odpowiedzialności za funkcjonowanie globalnego Internetu.