Communication Strategies of Appointed and Elected Russian Governors: Comparative Analysis

While Internet and social media have transformed the nature of political communication worldwide, there are regional differences in political communication caused by culture and the structure of power. The political power of Russia's regions is fundamentally heterogeneous, with a part of governors being elected and another part of governors being appointed. This heterogeneity may result in significant differences in governors’ communication strategies. With these differences being not considered by the academic community yet, this research aims to fill the gap and provide a comparative analysis of Russian governors’ communication strategies in the hybrid media environment. First, a critical discourse analysis of Russian governors’ communication on social networks is carried out in order to identify explicit and implicit problems typically mentioned by them and to recognise their communicative intentions. Second, a content analysis is carried out in order to provide the quantitative data with regard to communication strategies used by Russian governors. Finally, a statistical analysis is to be performed on the obtained data, with ANOVA and cluster analysis serving as the main methods for detecting the significant differences and their interpretation. The recommendations provided based on the findings could be used to inform Russian governors’ communication strategies.