You will recognize them by their posts

The heads of Russian regions strive for the image of “business executives” in social networks and instant messengers, so the main topic of their publications is management decisions. This conclusion was reached by the Polylog consulting group, which studied the governor’s Telegram channels in 2023. There are several chapters that stand out noticeably against the general background in the “military” direction (for example, the Chechen leader Ramzan Kadyrov), but in general the governors managed to find a balance between the development agenda and the theme of supporting the Northern Military District.

The main “thematic dominant” in the discourse of regional heads in the past year was management decisions (the words “conducted”, “participation”, “project”, “plan”, etc.), the report says. The average share of this topic in the total number of posts is almost a quarter – 22.8%. The second most mentioned group of words is related to the well-being of the population (“people”, “children”, “guys”, health categories related to sports and medicine), on average it accounts for 14% of posts. Finally, regional politics closes the top three main “dominants” (mentions of regional authorities, 11.4%).

Issues of international relations (not included in the top 50 categories for 73 heads of regions out of 83), culture (53) and transport (50) most often remain outside the attention of governors. The experts also compiled a word cloud of the 250 most mentioned categories. The leaders were creative: “resident” (mentioned 30.7 thousand times), “new” (30.6 thousand), “project” (28.9 thousand), “development” (28.2 thousand). , “district” (24.9 thousand) and “region” (24.8 thousand).

The distribution of governors along the “thematic spectrum” (in the scales “personalization – management” and “modern manager – military head”) shows that the bulk of the heads are in the “managers-businessmen” square. “This state of affairs is evidence that regional heads predominantly run their Telegram channels in a similar way,” the study says. At the same time, several separate groups stand out – governors with highly personalized content (heads of Chechnya and Tatarstan Ramzan Kadyrov and Rustam Minnikhanov), “military governors” (Oryol Andrei Klychkov, Belgorod Vyacheslav Gladkov, Kursk Roman Starovoyt, as well as the head of Komi Vladimir Uiba) and “governors-super-managers” (the head of the Moscow region Andrei Vorobyov and the mayor of the capital Sergei Sobyanin showed the highest points on the “management” and “modern manager” scales).

The former are grouped due to the regular use of the national language and “non-standard formats” for maintaining personal channels. For example, the rais of Tatarstan Rustam Minnikhanov greets subscribers daily in Tatar and, in general, regularly uses repeated formulations in the national language, so in his top 50 mentioned categories the “personal” block occupies almost 75%. Ramzan Kadyrov also often writes in Chechen, but on the “spectrum” he is closer to the “military” type due to the special role of Chechnya in the Northern Military District.

The group of “military governors” itself consists almost entirely of the heads of the border territories; they form “a unique discourse that is almost entirely related to the Northern Military District,” the authors continue. Vladimir Uyba, who is not one of the “front-line” governors, became one of the “military” ones due to the fact that he regularly informs about the residents of the republic who died at the front. But the heads of Sevastopol and Crimea, Mikhail Razvozhaev and Sergei Aksenov, rather gravitate towards the “managerial square”, although they are in close proximity to the front. “A possible explanation is that Crimeans and Sevastopol residents adapted to military conditions faster than others, and therefore form a demand for high-quality public administration, which the heads of the constituent entities strive to satisfy,” the report says.

“Governors-super-managers” naturally represent the central regions of Russia – Moscow and the Moscow region, while Sergei Sobyanin is the leader in mentioning transport projects, experts continue.

They pay special attention to the first elected governors – Mikhail Kotyukov (Krasnoyarsk Territory) and Vasily Anokhin (Smolensk Region). They are closest in terms of indicators to “super managers”. “Their content in “new media” fully reflects the demand for real work,” the report’s authors say.

The study also identified features in the context of federal districts. Thus, in the Siberian District the share of “SBO-discourse” is only 3.9%, but the highest share of the managerial category is 28.8%. In the neighboring Ural District these figures are 4.1% and 24.6%, respectively.

Finally, the study authors selected the leaders by mention in each of the key thematic categories. In the “economy” section, the leader is Alexey Teksler (Chelyabinsk region, 21.8%), “urban environment” – Sergei Sobyanin (13.4%), “municipal governance and direct actions of the governor” – Andrey Travnikov (Novosibirsk region, 41.6 %), “well-being of the population” – Andrey Vorobyov (30.7%), “education” – Artem Zdunov (Mordovia, 5.6%), “transport infrastructure” – Sergei Sobyanin, (18.7%), “culture” — Veniamin Kondratiev (Krasnodar Territory, 5.4%), “regional politics” — Vladislav Kuznetsov (Chukotka, 26.3%), “federal policy” — Mikhail Degtyarev (Khabarovsk Territory, 29.5%), “foreign policy” — Vladimir Saldo (Kherson region, 13.3%), “SVO” — Andrey Klychkov (40.5%), “personal” — Rustam Minnikhanov (73.4%), “congratulations” — Andrey Klychkov (29.7% ).

According to member of the Public Chamber Daria Kislitsyna, patriotic content in the social networks of regional heads “increased multiple times” in 2023, but it does not displace the development agenda or replace it: “Two independent agendas are crystallizing – about patriotism and about development.” “The key change is the increase in the number of messages about support for the mobilized, this was especially evident in the first half of the year,” says Yaroslav Ignatovsky, head of the Politgen analytical center. “In most regions there are development projects, and chapters often talk about them, for example, as in Stavropol Territory, Penza and Omsk Regions.”

Nikita Setov, Deputy General Director of Polylog for GR, states that “governors are generally responsible for everything: good, bad, neutral.” “There is no longer domestic politics as an isolated environment for making exclusively political and administrative decisions. Now everything that does not belong to the sphere of foreign policy and international relations is in fact the area of ​​responsibility of internal political blocs and heads. Taking into account the launch of the presidential campaign, the responsibility of regional heads will increase even more, and the semantic content of their work will depend on the events of the campaign,” he adds.

Andrey Prah