Yanchenko A. «Political Participation Facilitated by Social Media: the Case of Ukraine’s Euromaidan Protest Movement»

The object of the thesis is the participation of citizens in political decision-making processes. The subject of the research is the peculiarities of the political participation of the citizens of Ukraine, carried out with the use of the latest Internet technologies, within the public movement "Euromaidan". The main provisions that determined the novelty of the dissertation are as follows: for the first time the specifics of the impact of mediatization on political participation were determined, which allowed to substantiate the importance of social media for political activity of Ukrainian citizens on the example of Euromaidan events; on the basis of classical and new scientific approaches the category of self-mediated political participation is offered, and the corresponding practices in the period of mass protests in Ukraine of 2013 - 2014 are allocated; the categorical-conceptual apparatus of political studies devoted to the analysis of political participation and such its specific varieties as online participation, electronic participation, slactivism has been improved. The criteria of differentiation of technologically-mediated participation of citizens in politics and media activity of citizens are offered; strategies for the study of social media as a communicative mechanism, a public sphere and a tool for political participation; developments of Ukrainian researchers, devoted to tendencies and features of political participation of citizens of Ukraine. An analysis of the dynamics of popularization of information and communication technologies and the most common forms of political participation in our country; received further development: theoretical and methodological approaches to the study of political participation using information and communication technologies; study the characteristics of social media related to the exercise by citizens of their right to participate in political decision-making. A substantive analysis of the five most common types of social media in political practices - social networking sites, blogs, microblogging services, media content platforms, social messengers; consideration of the media and communicative dimensions of the Euromaidan events that took place in Ukraine in 2013-2014, which allowed to reveal the mechanisms of political activity with the use of social media based on the analysis of media content and ways of using Internet technologies during mass protests.