State Communication Policy Design under the Conditions of the Information Society Development in the Russian Federation

The purpose of this article is to develop a theoretical model of the communication policy of public authorities of the Russian Federation under the conditions of the information society development and justification of the critical conditions of its implementation. The methodological background of the study is a problem analysis of existing communication practices of public authorities to identify the key integrative problems that hinder the achievement of the goal of effective communication policy for the development of the information society. These include: consideration of the technological factor as a key element and the conditions for the formation of the information society; a significant emphasis on national security, understood in a restrictive, isolationist sense; the construction of state communication policy on the basis of a unified, unidirectional communication process; the communication gap from other stakeholders of the information society; identification of communication with information. These problems were decomposed and transformed into governance challenges, and the communication process of public authorities in Russia was designed taking into account the goals of the information society development and selected governance challenges. The results of the analysis justify the need to shift the emphasis of the formation and development of communication policy from the technological to the social one, namely, the formation of stakeholders of the information society, which includes public servants. Continuous training for the development of relevant knowledge and skills becomes an integral element of communication policy. The study also concluded that it is necessary to replace the restrictive, isolationist connotation of state security with a broader and more flexible interpretation of security as sustainable development. Using sustainable development as a metaphor (message) for stakeholder engagement, a clear communication policy model should be developed that takes into account the principles that follow from the theory of the information society and the communication theory of power.