The article considers features of modern Russian youth media preferences transformation against the activity’s restrictions of digital social platforms as Instagram, TikTok, etc. The authors have assumed that the “flow” of youth audience to other platforms would occur at a very rapid pace, and new platforms would be mastered in the shortest possible time, i.e. adaptation would be maximally effective. It has also been hypothesized that new platforms creation would attract youth audience, which would seek to “close” their consumer preferences through the newly emerging digital platforms in Russia, replacing those that were legally restricted. To test the above hypotheses, we have surveyed young people aged 18–24, who are the main audience that, according to the hypothesis of this study, would be most affected by media environment transformation. The main hypotheses have been tested by means of several blocks of questions to which the respondents gave answers first within the framework of a standardized questionnaire and then in free form within the framework of interviewing by the researchers. As a result of the study, it has been found out that the specifics of media preferences transformation among young people is not so significant compared to general changes in society, and therefore recommendations for further research directions have been put forward.

The article contains materials of a sociological study of public history sociocultural practices in social media. Based on the analysis of data from in-depth interviews with experts in the field of media history (N = 60) conducted in 2022-2023, a classification of the main risks that a historian faces on the Web has been compiled. The concept of digital capital was used as a theoretical framework, considering it as a relevant component of cultural, symbolic, and social types of capital. Digital transformation of society, including education system, is a factor in digitalization and democratization of knowledge. In this process, academic communities, commercial projects, initiative groups, and individual citizens face a number of risks associated with acquisition and realization of their capitals. The analysis of the research results allowed us to conclude that the relevant sources of risks are the communicative and financial side of activity. The issue of confrontation between academic community and digital popularizers of history remains debatable, as experts point out the danger of deprofessionalization in case of excessive audience orientation. Since riskiness goes hand in hand with societal instability, uncertainty, and hypervariability, political and corporate suppression of certain discourses and dynamic development of information and communication technologies have been highlighted as risks. The latter creates both risks and potential for public history development, historians mastering a new set of competences and obtaining differentiated sources of income. In this process, intangible capital is converted into material capital, actualizing the financial side of practices.

The article builds on the well-developed problem of studying trust in society towards social institutions, as well as between individuals. Currently, contact quantitative sociology faces a number of challenges, and the level of consent to participate in surveys is steadily falling. In order to reliably assess public opinion, non-contact tools for studying the digital environment are already required. The application of non-survey techniques for collecting big data using a pre-formed thesaurus allows us to select data for analysis and circumvent the problems associated with respondent recruitment. The application of SML approach to analyze digital publications of Russian-speaking users from Novosibirsk (more than 450 thousand publications) collected in 2020 has been considered. The combination of quantitative and qualitative methods allowed us to describe the audience and categorize the areas of public distrust and dissatisfaction. The application of this approach can be useful for managerial tasks aimed at increasing trust in society. Thus, the study is a valuable contribution to the development of modern sociology and its applied aspects.

The article deals with the problem of replication of educational space digitalization risks in modern higher education institutions by representatives of university subcorporations. It has been presented that modern higher education institution is gradually turning into a quasi-corporation, in which employees and students have a specific corporate consciousness. The article is based on the idea that digital risks arising in the process of educational space digitalization in ­modern higher education institutions act as attitude demarcators to the ongoing transformations on the part of university subcorporations representatives, the main of which are administrative staff, professors, researchers, and students. The results of the author’s sociological research conducted in the period from 2019 to 2022, expert surveys and focus group interviews have been used, in the course of which valid and representative data had been obtained. Depending on perception of the education system digitalization strategy, representatives of higher education subcorporations have been conditionally divided into four groups: “consistent supporters”, “moderate pragmatists”, “skeptics”, and “undecided”. Each of them, except for the last one, has been characterized by specific risk dispositions (risk-dispositions). The definition of risk dispositions is conditional: “risk progressors”, “risk managers”, “risk oppositionists”. The article defines the demarcators regulating the dispositions of university subcorporations representatives.

The article studies a phenomenon of Internet activism of virtual communities, identifies their essence and characteristics, and analyzes possible social risks of their activities. The authors substantiate a position that such communities are able to quickly mobilize users for coordinated actions in social reality, responding to economic, social, political, and cultural events. These activities are generally oppositional to established values and social institutions and carry social risks. Based on the approaches of G. Rheingold, N. Baym, and B. Wellman, the authors propose, justify, and develop their own typology of virtual communities depending on their Internet activity. The article focuses on the activity of explicitly virtual (latently real) communities that influence social reality through protest performances, flash mobs, spam attacks, Internet actions, etc. Using the case study method, the authors examine Reddit’s r/wallstreetbets and V.V. Pozdnyakov’s Muzhskoe Gosudarstvo Telegram communities. Based on the analysis of the Internet activism practices of virtual communities, risks and threats of uncontrolled and spontaneous actions on their part have been demonstrated. As a result, need for multidimensional analysis of virtual communities by government agencies, business representatives, and research scientific centers has been noted.

The article identifies six main types of content: communication, entertainment, situational, news, sales, and reputation. The study analyzes changes in content plan structure of companies providing various categories of consumer goods in 2022. The reviewed companies operate in Russia, have official accounts VK and actively interact with users. These companies’ activity on VK has been reviewed and analyzed and trends in various types of content placement considered. The regularities in companies’ content plan change and types of prevailing content for 2022 have been highlighted. The article concludes that Russian companies are facing a serious challenge related to the vacated market niches due to a number of foreign brands market withdrawal. Companies that change their content plan in the direction of active interaction with users and effective use of available social network opportunities will have a clear advantage over those ones that continue to focus their efforts on Western resources, access to which is significantly hindered, and advertising placement and use of paid promotion tools are illegal.

The use of Russian-language social networks by migrants from Tajikistan and Kyrgyzstan, primarily on VK, has increased significantly in recent years. This network has enabled easy communication both within and between ethnic communities. It has become a social space of ethno-national discourse with its own laws and rules of social interaction, including conflictogenic one. At the same time, publications on ethno-national discourse of Tajik and Kyrgyz migrants in social networks are practically absent in Russian scientific literature. In this regard, the authors have set a goal to identify the features of ethno-national discourse of Kyrgyz and Tajik migrants in the VK Russian-language social network during the conflict on the Kyrgyz-Tajik border. The empirical basis of the study was the results of online questionnaire survey of 400 migrant respondents from Tajikistan and Kyrgyzstan and qualitative analysis of their posts with a vivid news agenda about the relationship between the two countries. The peculiarities of ethno-national discourse of migrants in social networks between Tajik and Kyrgyz virtual groups consisted in an attempt to understand the ongoing conflict. As a rule, the discussion has come down to finding someone to blame or calling for the cessation of hostilities. The analysis has showed that hating had been actively developing in virtual interaction between migrants. At the same time, conciliatory actions on the part of both diasporas have been observed. The results have showed the need for constant monitoring of ethno-national discourse of Tajik and Kyrgyz migrants in social networks, as virtual interaction can very likely lead to real conflicts between representatives of Tajik and Kyrgyz diasporas in Russia.

Modern Internet space is filled with various kinds of information, including unreliable, fake information. In the current socio-cultural, socio-political, and socio-economic conditions, we should expect further increase in the spread of fakes and, as a consequence, their negative impact on people’s lives. The article analyses results of a sociological study on the attitude of the Kursk region population to fakes spread in the Internet space. The empirical basis of the study is the results of the online questionnaire survey conducted in September 2022 in the Kursk region. The sample population of the study was 521 people living in the territory of Kursk and Kursk region. Fakes are becoming a real part of life in modern society. Residents of the region are constantly faced with inaccurate information. They recognize its danger and note that fakes nevertheless “attract” their attention. The current situation requires additional measures development to regulate dissemination of information in the Internet space.