Institutionalization of Ukrainians’ socio-political online activity in the context of the Great War

First, COVID-19 and then the full-scale war in Ukraine had a significant impact on the online civic and political activity of Ukrainians. In the face of restrictions on traditional forms of civic and political engagement, Ukrainians have begun to actively use online tools. The digital public sphere has become the main space for socio-political engagement, allowing citizens to support national resistance, initiate volunteer movements, raise funds for the army, and address socio-political issues through petitions, etc. Thus, the prerequisites for the institutionalization of socio-political online activity arose, the study of which seems extremely relevant in the context of digital transformations of modern society.

The article analyzes the theoretical aspects of the institutionalization of socio-political online activity, in particular through the prism of the neo-institutional approach, which emphasizes the equality of formal and informal norms governing the behavior of citizens in the digital public sphere.

The experience of empirical research on socio-political online activity in Ukraine in 2013–2019 was also considered, which helps to understand the trends of institutionalization. At the same time, the methodology of measuring socio-political online activity in the monitoring survey of the Institute of Sociology of the National Academy of Sciences of Ukraine was used to clarify the peculiarities of institutionalization in the context of war. Using the concept of transaction costs, the main forms of online activity were identified. To compare the prevalence of different forms of online activity among different social groups, we included such socio-demographic characteristics as gender, age, education, financial status, and type of settlement.

It turned out that the digital public sphere does allow different social groups to realize their interests based on their own social and psychological resources. However, material deprivation, unequal access to education, and the urban-rural gap in access to the Internet significantly reduce online activity and generally slow down the process of institutionalization.