Modern society is experiencing a digital transformation of various spheres associated with the development of artificial intelligence and big data. The introduction of large language models (hereinafter referred to as LLM) into scientific research opens new opportunities, but also raises a number of questions, which makes it relevant to study the peculiarities of their application for qualitative data analysis in sociology. The purpose of this article is to explore how LLM can influence the methodology and practice of sociological research, and to identify the advantages and disadvantages of their application. The authors rely on the use of the Calude-3 LLM to qualitatively analyse empirical data from a sociological study of students’ perception of ­entrepreneurship. The possibilities of LLM in the analysis of qualitative data are revealed: analysis of sentiment, construction of logical conclusions, classification, clustering, and formation of typologies. The advantages of using LLM are shown: increased data processing speed, saving time and resources. The application of LLM becomes a tool to optimise the research process in sociology, allowing to deepen the analysis of qualitative data, but it also has a number of limitations: social and political bias, difficulties with hallucinations. It is necessary to increase the transparency of models, improve their interpretability and explainability and reduce their social and political bias as well as ethical and legal regulation of the use of LLM models.

Online shopping has grown exponentially in the Russian Federation (hereinafter referred to as RF, Russia) in recent years. This growth has significantly accelerated during the COVID-19 pandemic. However, data shows that there are inter-regional disparities in the use of online shopping. This includes intergenerational and rural-urban disparities. This study investigates the factors responsible for inter-regional differences in the development of online shopping in Russia. The author has identified 5 main factors that can influence the development: internet infrastructure (measured by regional expenses for the introduction of digital technologies and the number of connected mobile subscribers), economic wealth (measured by gross regional product), standard of living (measured by the population income), rate of poverty, and the region’s population. The research uses data of the Federal State Statistics Service and Association of Internet Trade Companies to analyse 85 regions in the RF. A multi-level regression analysis has enabled examination of the 5 factors and the contextual influence of 8 federal districts of Russia in level 2. The results show that internet infrastructure, economic wealth, population size, and the 8 federal districts has influenced the development of online shopping in the RF, but standard of living is not statistically significant. The author recommends that policymakers pay attention to these underlying factors.

The article presents the results of the empirical research of consumer behaviour features in the sphere of fast food catering in the Moscow market. The research method is a questionnaire survey with the use of digital technologies. The article reveals the loyalty of consumers to the visited fast food establishments; their motivation to visit new such places is determined; the awareness of consumers about the opening of new fast food establishments is studied; their preferences regarding the use of meal delivery services of these places and staying at them are revealed. The conclusions are formulated that direct visit to fast food restaurants remains a popular social practice among a significant part of consumers; digital meal delivery services of these places is actively used by consumers; visiting fast food establishments and ordering meal delivery there are typical for representatives of low-, middle-, and high-income audience segments; the communication activity of new fast food restaurants being opened is insufficient; the audience’s expectations from visiting these places and ordering food from them are not limited to the satisfaction of basic needs. The results of the research can be useful for the development of marketing strategies and advertising campaigns in the sphere of fast food catering as well as for the adjustment of business strategies of the restaurants.

The evolution and wide use of modern technologies, tools and methods of communication are an integral part of the modern information society. In particular, current communication and information technologies provide an opportunity to create and extract a digital footprint for an individual or a certain group. In relation to the public authorities’ activities, the digital footprint can be used to analyse the reaction of society to their actions more effectively. By researching the digital footprint of social media actors in a particular region, it is possible to determine how the population treats various decisions and measures taken by the authorities. Due to digital participation, citizens have the opportunity and a tool to facilitate the management process at the stages of decision-making. The digital participation generates a digital footprint, the analysis of which provides feedback on the actions of the authorities. The purpose of the article is to propose a communicative and information model for the inclusion of the digital participation in the evaluation of social processes, consisting of mechanisms and interfaces for obtaining information alongside with mechanisms and interfaces for receiving feedback for evaluating the activities of public authorities in the region. The efficiency of the model has been practically proved by the example of a socially significant event in the Oryol region. Using the example of regional management centres, the expediency of introducing the model for evaluating the activities of public authorities in the region through receiving feedback is shown. This will increase the involvement of citizens in the regulation of social processes in the region and improve the quality of management.

The article presents the results of a practical study of the features of fake reviews that are described by marketers and other experts. Due to the abundance of fake reviews on marketplaces, consumer trust falls not only in the seller or platform, but in the genre itself. The paper presents the results of automatic classification of reviews from Russian marketplaces into potentially fake and honest ones using modelling of features that experts call labels of a fake review (presence of template words, exclamation marks, emoji, positive sentiment), and machine learning algorithms. To solve the problem, a corpus of 6 288 texts from the Russian marketplaces Wildberries and Megamarket has been collected. The target variable (predicted class) is the ratio of likes and dislikes given to the review by other buyers. The best result is demonstrated by the support vector machine algorithm in binary classification into reviews with a low and high ratings (without neutral ones). The classification model confirms that the formal features identified by experts as indicating fake reviews indeed have predictive potential. The quality of the model is reduced by the imbalance in classes and insufficient number of reviews with buyer reactions in our corpus, which leaves room for further work.

The article is devoted to the analysis of interactive advertising as a relatively new factor influencing the consumer behaviour of Moscow youth. The empirical basis of the work are statistical and sociological research data, including the authors’ own research conducted using the methods of mass survey and indepth interview. As the study has showed, the Moscow youth are quite familiar with the interactive advertising, most often encountering it on mobile devices and in gaming applications. The article analyses several types of the interactive advertising, differing in the degree of their impact on the consumer behaviour of young people. The authors come to the conclusion that the most effective in this regard are playable and video advertising placed in mobile device applications. As advantages of the interactive advertising, in comparison with the traditional format, the authors highlight its innovation and playful nature. At the same time, many young Muscovites express a negative attitude towards the interactive advertising, mainly because of its intrusiveness. Moreover, young men demonstrate greater loyalty to this format of advertising influence in comparison with young ladies. The authors come to the conclusion that, despite the noted shortcomings, the interactive advertising has great potential for development in modern society.

Today, high-performance employees who are capable of rapid learning, have developed adaptability skills to environmental changes and specific competencies, the so-called “talents”, are of particular value to organisations. Such employees represent a strategic asset of the company and can help in the implementation of various business strategies. The talented employee management system allows to identify, develop, and retain such specialists, which in turn helps to reduce staff turnover and improve the efficiency of the team. The introduction of talented employee management is especially important in the context of digital transformation of the economy as it allows to use all the advantages of digital technologies to achieve corporate goals Also, talent management is not an easy task, and its implementation may require significant efforts and resources. Despite the fact that this process is associated with certain difficulties, such as search and selection of talented specialists in highly competitive conditions, its advantages significantly outweigh the possible risks. It is important to understand that talent management requires constant monitoring and adaptation to changing conditions. This paper describes the features of the talent management system and the advantages of its implementation for an organisation in the context of digital transformation of society.

In the article, based on the study conducted by the sociological laboratory of the Moscow State Linguistic University (hereinafter referred to as MSLU), the essence and level of digital culture of a university teacher are determined, problematic areas of digitalisation of the educational process are identified, which require urgent measures to improve the current situation in the higher education system of the Russian Federation. The study has proved that the digital culture of the university teacher is their digital social competence formed in the course of professional activity as well as the driving force that determines the attitude towards the digitalisation of the educational process. The development level of the digital culture of a teacher at a linguistic university is below average. The majority of respondents have digital skills and use basic digital technologies in the learning process. The level of proficiency among teachers of the MSLU is comparable to the level of development of these skills among teachers at other Russian universities. At the same time, in terms of the level of competence in developing online courses and using their materials as additional educational material, teachers of the MSLU lag behind the all-Russian indicators. The main problematic areas of the digitalisation of the educational process are: low degree of equipment of audiences with modern technical means; low quality and availability of Internet communications on the territory of educational buildings; insufficient opportunities to improve the level of the digital culture of teaching staff in the field of modern digital technologies, etc.

Infographics are used to display information in a visual form with a graphic component, and have become widespread due to the convergence of the media space, which has transformed the processes of collecting, processing, broadcasting, and, most importantly, presenting information. The purpose of the article is to consider infographics as a media format for self-presentation of an organisation, as a tool for managing its image. The conducted analysis allows us to show a classification of the infographics according to the following criteria: display method, data type, purpose, presentation format, presence of interactivity, and time perspective. The functionality of the infographics is quite wide: these are functions, such as cognitive, analytical, factual, instructive, argumentative, ascertaining, attractive, expressive, aesthetic, identification, decorative, etc. However, some functions are still not sufficiently disclosed. The article examines the function of presenting the infographics in the media space and, based on a rapid survey, shows its importance in terms of informing the audience about the content of the organisation’s activities, revealing the viral potential of the infographics and its impact on the positive perception of the audience. This all points to the possibility of using the infographics as a media format for self-presentation of an organisation in various target communities, as an effective tool for managing image perception.