Internet communications of Russian political parties in the current election cycle: results of oculometric analysis of the network content

The article presents the results of a study of Internet communications of Russian political parties at the start of a new electoral cycle in 2021. The research is interdisciplinary in nature and based on the following methodological approaches: post-behaviorism, implicit cognitive science, Predictor Mining. The empirical strategy includes a combination of methods: SMA, eye tracking and focus group interviews. During the implementation of the oculometric analysis, a protocol developed for evaluating the productivity of a combination of psychosemantic procedures and computer registration of a person's gaze during the 2018 election campaigns was selected to build a battery of visual stimuli. As a result of the study, the following features of respondents' perception of the Internet content of political parties are recorded: the main line of spectral opposition in the views of the Russian electorate is associated with the antagonism of such political parties as “United Russia” and “Yabloko”; to a greater extent, at the time of the study, the electorate of “new parties” that achieved success in the regional elections in 2020 is mobilized; the reliance of “new” political parties on public opinion leaders becomes one of the basic tools for implementing their electoral tasks, etc. The proposed in the study methodology for attestation of Internet content can be in demand by political parties to improve the content and psychotechnological characteristics of their information flows in social media. The use of the developed methodology for applying oculometric analysis for the certification of Internet content will allow party actors to improve the targeting technology in cooperation with the electorate.

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