DIGITAL DEVELOPMENT OF THE SIBERIAN FEDERAL DISTRICT: CLUSTERING OF REGIONS IN A TAG CLOUD

Abstract

Free access to the flow of regional news and online generators of tag clouds opens up new opportunities for human geography with regard to processing big data and detecting geographical patterns. The aim of the study was to identify the current digital development priorities of ten Siberian regions by clustering them in a tag cloud from the stream of official regional news. There were identified twelve tags (labels, keywords) that reflect the priorities of digital development. Based on the flow of news (texts) from the regional ministries of digital development for the first five months of 2021, clouds of the most common tags were created. Five bands of tag frequency were set. A measure of the distance between the regions in the tag cloud and an algorithm for grouping regions into clusters were proposed. It has been found that there are no regions in Siberia with the same priorities for digital development; the existing differences allow us to group all the regions into two clusters. On this basis, the initial hypothesis about the uniformity of digital development priorities in all the regions has been rejected. Ten features of the digital development of Siberia are listed. The directions of further research on this issue are presented.