Discursive and Stylistic Analysis of Digital Communications in Public Administration: Stating a Problem

Abstract

The transmission of information through electronic technologies leads to the transformation of the texts that provide a dialogue between government and society. New qualities of these texts (“hypertext”, “interactivity”, “multimodality”, etc.) significantly distinguish electronic materials from traditional written texts. In this connection, the article raises the problem of a new object of speech studies: so called media product. To solve this problem, the authors propose a transdisciplinary approach based on the achievements of adjacent sciences: functional stylistics, discourse theory, management theory, jurisprudence, sociology, psychology and others. Within the limits of the problem posed, the authors’ attention is focused on a number of actual tasks of speech studies: a. genre-stylistic classification of digital texts presented by executive authorities; b. identification of means of text influence on the addressee in a media dialogue between the authorities and society; c. working out of recommendations on creating digital texts of high quality. The scale of the problem posed is conditioned by multitasking of public administration, the influence of numerous discursive factors on power - society communication, by diversity of media texts created by public administration. The scientific significance of the study of digital content of executive authorities is determined by the need to clarify the discursive and stylistic features of actual official - business communication. Within the framework of this communication media products of various genre and format types are created: from traditional official texts to the texts bordering on other functional styles. These types of the Russian executive authorities’ texts have not yet received a comprehensive linguistic description. The novelty of this task is determined by a. minimal exploration of media products of the Russian administration texts; b. the introduction of the concept executive authorities’ digital discourse (i. e., digitally designed discourse) into scholarly use; c. the need for a professional audit of efficiency of the authorities’ dialogue with the public.