The article presents the results of a study of the causes, social base and digital infrastructures of mass political protest in the Republic of Belarus in the summer-autumn of 2020. When implementing the study, the authors relied on two key methods: automated social and media analysis and cognitive mapping. Internet content was uploaded via the IQBuzz automated social media monitoring service. As a result, a dataset was compiled, including 700 thousand messages from 30 major social media. Within the framework of the study, a social and media analysis was carried out in three areas: the pro-government agenda, the opposition agenda – elections and the opposition agenda. In the case under consideration, the growth of interest and the inclusion of a female audience in information flows on protest topics in social media is recorded. This can be directly linked to the inclusion in the list of triggers of mass protest: victimhood, violence, and women's participation, which elicits an emotional response based on feelings of solidarity and empathy. In addition, the authors note that mass protests in the Republic of Belarus are characterized by an adult social-media and offline audience. The experience of Belarus has demonstrated the transit in the context of protest moderators: from public opinion leaders to social networks that allow not only to broadcast information about the protests, but also to form specific instructions with an action plan for the protesters. Informal opinion leaders become a tool for attracting attention, but the protest is moderated by social networks. All these trends demonstrate a change in approaches to the organization and management of protest actions, which affects their stability and the degree of manageability. Hence, this work allows us to establish a new reality of political and civil protests, which will show why traditional methods of neutralizing protest activity do not work in the current reality, which later becomes one of the reasons for revising the classic tools in leveling protest actions and the effects that they create.

The article presents the results of applied research, the purpose of which was to study the informational streams of the Financial University under the Government of the Russian Federation aimed at the formation and promotion of the brand in social media. The cognitive mapping and automated social-media analysis implemented during the study made it possible to identify the features of internal and external branding of the Financial University. The social media brand of the Financial University is mainly aimed at communication and the formation of images of internal audiences, primarily students. To build an external brand, the Financial University uses traditional media and attracts influential actors. The transformation of this approach is due to the entry of the Financial University to the new digital platforms Telegram and TikTok, which allow the use of social media, including the formation of an external social media brand.

The paper presents the results of an applied study of the digital audience, which forms the basis for the generation and distribution of social discontent in the Russian segment of social media. For profiling Internet users, the authors implemented clustering of subjects of the Russian Federation according to the type of social discontent. Through a cognitive mapping of digital content, authors analyzed the substance and structure of the information flow of social discontent in each selected cluster. The research selected regional markers that reflect specific topics and contexts of discontent. Owing to automated socio-media analysis, the authors got data on the gender and age structure of social discontent networks in Russia. The study results reflect significant differences in the structure of networks of social discontent, which determine the importance of using modern digital technics for their identification and assessment.

The article presents the results of applied political research, which is to determine the triggers, technologies, and infrastructure of mass political protests in Russia from 2020 to 2021. The implemented event analysis allowed us to establish that the protest mobilisation is carried out in two stages: the primary — based on actions around the protest symbol, the secondary — based on dissatisfaction with the existing political regime, the socio-economic situation, and the actions of law enforcement agencies. Cognitive mapping allowed us to establish that the active use of affective methods of forming discourses enables us to ensure users’ emotional involvement in protest information flows, which affects their attitude to them. Cybermetric analysis has demonstrated that the features of Telegram as a protest platform allow for effective mobilisation and moderation of protest activity.

The article presents the results of an applied political research on the representation of the 2022 Kazakh events in the Russian segment of social media. The context of the study stems from the significant intersection of the Russian and Kazakh segments of social media and the mutual influence of political processes. Under the political mobilization of the mass protests in Kazakhstan, which turned into an attempted coup, the activities of Russian counterelites intensified in various regions of Russia. Using a hybrid research strategy combined with cognitive mapping and social media analysis the authors managed to identify dynamic, structural and substantive characteristics of the information representation of the Kazakh events in the Russian segment of the Internet. The authors concluded that the scale of the Kazakh protests allowed to draw the short-term interest of the Russian audience, mainly from the regions bordering Kazakhstan. The use of economic triggers (rising prices, inefficient social policy, etc.) led to the involvement of the adult audience in the discussions around the Kazakh events, while a significant part of youth and young adults was excluded from information flows around the events. The study revealed that the Russian opposition attempted to use manipulative “contamination” technology in order to extrapolate the political and economic discontent in Kazakhstan to the situation in Russia. At the same time, the greatest resonance in the Russian segment of users was caused directly by the participation of the Collective Security Treaty Organization (CSTO) in the settlement, and not by the social and economic triggers that led to the events.