printDigital Stigmata as a Tool of Manipulating Mass Consciousness in the Conditions of Modern State and Society
Volodenkov S.V.
Dr. Sci. (Polit), Prof., Lomonosov Moscow State University, Moscow, Russia. s.v.cyber@gmail.com
Fedorchenko S.N.
Cand. Sci., associate professor of Moscow State Regional University, Moscow, Russia s.n.fedorchenko@mail.ru
Volodenkov S.V., Fedorchenko S.N. Digital Stigmata as a Tool of Manipulating Mass Consciousness in the Conditions of Modern State and Society. Sotsiologicheskie issledovaniya [Sociological Studies]. 2018. No 11. P. 117-123
In the conditions of Internet evolution as an independent space of social and political communications, traditional approaches to impact on mass consciousness acquire a new sound and potential associated with the emergence of new tools for digital communications. In this regard, the rethinking of classical models and methods of socio-political stereotyping and mythologization seems to us an actual task for contemporary science. The aim of this paper is to conceptualize the problem of applying digital stigmatization in socially-manipulative practice – social and political technologies of sticking labels and markers by political actors to their opponents in the space of social media. Analysis of contemporary political practice demonstrates that digital stigmatization technologies are today becoming a serious tool for conducting political struggle for the conquest and retention of power that has a significant potential for influencing mass consciousness. According to authors, the activity of political opponents is coded by politically and informationaly influential actors as an activity of carriers of deviant behavior, which is a threat to society and the state. The work determines the essential role of tools for the formation of specific conditions in the network space that change the interpretation of political life with the help of digital stigma. The authors come to the conclusion that the subjects of stigmatization in modern practice in many cases are directly institutes of political power, which attempt to establish information control over society in their own interests, using for this purpose modern digital technologies of stereotyping and mythologization of socio-political reality.
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