Social Media as a Means of Communication Between Local Governments and the Population: Problem of Empiric Assessing

The purpose of the study was to empirically substantiate the feasibility and necessity of using a certain set of indicators in the methods for assessing the effectiveness of local government communications with the population in social media. As part of the study, a number of indicators characterizing the effectiveness of communications in social media were calculated, a critical analysis of this was carried out, which allowed the author to develop recommendations for using this for an empirical assessment of the effectiveness of municipal government communications with the population. The design of the study consisted of a comprehensive study of the official public pages of local government bodies — administrations of municipalities of the Irkutsk region, an assessment of key indicators of activity and interest of users in content published by municipal administrations for a fixed time period (January 2025). The objects of the study were 80 public pages of administrations of ten urban districts and thirty municipal districts / counties of the Irkutsk region on the platforms of two social media — Telegram and VK. The results of the study revealed that the use of certain indicators can significantly distort the final assessment of the effectiveness of communications. Based on the conducted analysis, the author recommends using quantitative indicators in methods of this kind, including: the share of subscribers to the state public from the population of the territory, overall involvement, the share of median views in relation to subscribers, the regularity of publications. The obtained results can be useful for researchers whose area of scientific interests is in the plane of the problem under consideration, as well as representatives of media centers and press services of public authorities, political technologists, mediators, public government officials for the purpose of practical assessment of the effectiveness of the communications they carry out.