Digitization and its Impact on Political Media Space: Theoretical Aspect

The process of digitization as the new theoretical framework for studying economic, social and political practices is actively applied in the academic discourse, yet the conceptual nature of digitization is not sufficiently studied. The paper analyzes the digitization phenomenon both from the perspective of theoretical comprehension of the impact of digital and novel information and communication technologies (ICT) on various social institutions and processes, and from the perspective of identifying and classifying methodology approaches that exist in the humanities discourse and interpret the process of political media space digitization. An attempt is made to define the main stages of the political media space formation; key mass media tools are identified at each stage. The research identifies the technocratic, discursive and cratological approaches making it possible to identify the features of political media space’s digital transformation. Under conditions of digital society emergence, the political media space is considered to be, on the one hand, a “soft power” instrument and on the other hand, a combination of information resources, mass media institutions, channels and networks building a certain information infrastructure of a country, a region, a city.