Digital space as a field for political confrontation of authorities and opposition

Digitalization, rapidly changing the image of the basic social spheres, including the political sphere, transforms the competition conditions for the two basic spheres of the inner political arena – authority and opposition. The level of development of digital technologies and their penetration into modern social processes is so high that it allows speaking about emergence of digital space, which peculiarities are taken into account in building communication and competition in this couple. Both the opposition and authority have seen a lot of new opportunities in reaching their goals and achieving their aims, but at the same time a lot of problems and vulnerabilities, which they can't not consider. In this regard the digital space brings with itself ambiguous and sometimes even controversial prospective for them. In the article the attempt to state the main problems and discussions connected to understanding the digital space as a new field of political confrontation of authority and opposition is made. For that purpose the central notions of the issue investigated such as “digitalization” and “digital space” are analysed; the most important conditions of confrontation of authority and opposition in the digital space are considered; the main outline of the changes in the interaction of authority and society is drawn; the evaluation of the influence of digital space on the “traditional” democratic institutes is given.