Democratic political regime in development context of online network communities

The purpose of this work is to identify the potential and limitations of online network communities to strengthen the position of the democratic political regime. The study was conducted using the example of Internet communications in the USA and France. The principles of comparative analysis and quantitative content analysis were used as a methodological basis. Additional methodological optics were elements of SWOT analysis. The analysis showed that the American and French democratic political regimes actively use online network communities to strengthen their positions in society. At the same time, it is revealed that the largest online political communities are groups of leaders, which is interpreted by the authors as a general pattern in the two studied countries – the growth of populism. The increasing role of populism is associated with the phenomenon of mediacracy – the dependence of the modern political process on media corporations and media platforms, including online ones, which establish a specific format of media journalism for political actors. The strengths, weaknesses, opportunities and threats of online communities for preserving democracy are also identified.