This article presents main markers of the research line named political communication science. The analysis of the foreign literature has allowed the author not only to establish the stages and the current status of the mentioned research field but to demonstrate the current level of knowledge of political communication. This article reveals the tight interrelation between genesis of political communication science and the theoretical understanding of state administration, efficiency and legitimacy of administrative authority decisions. The research area of the western political system was shown restricted up to the solution of particular issues, whereby the author considers the problem how to move the political ccommunication science to a new level by means of expansion of research interest in media sphere, political advertizing, PR and even awareness campaign.
Under the influence of new information technologies, political and administrative interaction according to the formula "state power - civil society" acquires qualitatively new properties based on a deeper mutual penetration. Blogosphere and social networks have come to be united in terms of the concept of social Internet media, performing functions of the mass media, especially the informational one, and at the same time affect the administrative decision-making by various administrative structures at the state level. Blog as a means of mass communication in the political sphere has quite a large and stable popularity. In the context of current trends in the development of the contemporary information society, it were blogs to be considered the most convenient and effective method of informal Internet communication and perceived as the opportunity of realizing freedom of speech, a way to express one's views and, if possible, to influence the audience. Today, a blog is also a well-established, stable and popular genre, originally intended to be relatively free to disseminate one's personal views, to strengthen one's influence on the target audience and to find like-minded people. The selection of the site of your blog is also important in this respect: if micro-blogging within social network services is more popular among representatives of official authorities, then blogs in its classical sense, with the ability to express one's position to the fullest, are the main means of disseminating information in the arsenal of communication channels among politicians of various persuasions. Thus, the blog becomes an effective means of political and administrative communication, widely used by today's government officials who have been able to influence the audience through this very popular mass communication channel. Using the blog as a means of disseminating information allows creating new settings, adjusting existing values and foster new ones among representatives of contact audiences. The texts of the blogs become a full-fledged coherent, whole and complete texts which allows them to be viewed as a media product.
The article is devoted to considering the main rhetorical characteristics of the speech portrait of the participants of political-administrative network discourse, the texts analyzed include executive power representatives' tweets. Analyzing the peculiarities of their rhetoric, the author reveals the main features and defines the important characteristics of the speech portrait of the rhetor of network political-administrative communication, allowing them to effectively implement such important rhetorical functions as the audience impact and persuasion. The author determines the necessity of an interdisciplinary approach to the study of language and style of political and administrative communication in connection with politicization and mediatization of the information space and access of political and administrative activities to the public sphere. Analyzing the speech of representatives of the political administration the authors consider the manner of verbal generation of thought, connected, on the one hand, with clear pragmatic communicative intentions, and on the other hand, with conventional conditionality of online communication. The main properties of this style are identified, i.e. conciseness, brevity of form and conciseness of content, aimed at encouraging the Internet audience to response in more or less active forms. An essentially important opportunity for an official representative of administration of the highest level is revealed, that is to stay in the area of public accessibility as this allows them to be not only a representative of a government, but at the same time a representative of an audience, demonstrating the commonality of an ideological platform. The guiding principle of the rhetoric of political-administrative network media discourse is considered the law of harmonizing the dialogue, and the main categories of rhetorical effects are considered to be persuasion and dialogism. The main features of the speech portrait of the leading actor, the initiator of the communicative situation of political-administrative network media discourse, are identified, i.e. publicisticity, formality and conversationality, as well as credibility, exaplainability and expressivity, pathos, evaluativity, a combination of publicisticity, formality and conversationality, and a considerable amount of rhetorical figures of speech.
Nowadays, in transformation of the realm of political communication, a more important part is given to the so-called "new social media". Previously, political communication was seen as a process of production, dissemination and perception of political information for the purpose of achieving a consent regarding one or another political action. Additionally, communication appeared as a mechanism of one-way information exchange. Under new conditions, political communication becomes a tool of ensuring the process of preparation, making and implementing political decisions. In a modern understanding, an informational message is built by means of specific cooperation between communicants. In this regard, information sources appear as a specific base for state actions. This paper deals with old (traditional) and new social media and lists several characteristics that help distinguish these media. It also shows how authorities and representatives of political opposition can use social media to achieve their political purposes. This article analyses not only benefits but also drawbacks in the application of new information technologies in politics, considering a problem of manipulation as a main disadvantage. It also compares the use of social networks by authorities in Russia and abroad. Because of differences in political culture, social networks are not popular with Russian authorities. However, the number of social networking users among Russian politicians is increasing year by year. Moreover, the most popular network with them is Twitter. A conclusion can be drawn that new media play an important role in creating a system of rules of conduct on the Internet and in establishing a specific culture of electronic communication between representatives of authority and society.