POLITICAL SCIENCE ISSUES • Issue 3-4(54-59) • Volume 11 • 2021 127 DOI 10.35775/PSI.2021.54-59.3-4.004 G. B. PRONCHEV Candidate of Physics and Mathematics, Associate Professor; Associate Professor of the Department of Sociological Research Methodology at the Faculty of Sociology of Lomonosov Moscow State University, Moscow, Russia A. P. MIKHAILOV Doctor of Physics and Mathematics, Professor, Chief Researcher at Keldysh Institute of Applied Mathematics, Russian Academy of Sciences, Moscow, Russia VIRTUAL SOCIAL ENVIRONMENTS OF THE INTERNET AS A TOOL OF POLITICAL STRUGGLE The article is devoted to issues related to political communications in virtual social environments of the Internet. The features of virtual social environments in comparison with traditional mass media are considered. The degree of infuence of virtual social environments of the Internet on the level of democratization of the state and electoral processes is analyzed. The Russian legislation regulating remote electronic voting is being discussed. It is noted that the virtual social environments of the Internet are able to have a signifcant impact on the current political situation, unite and politically infuence large social groups of people, provide access to up-to-date information, are promising in terms of the develop- ment of electronic services for citizens’ appeals and Internet voting. The article is of interest to specialists dealing with the problems of political communications in virtual social environments, remote electronic voting. Key words: political Internet communications, political struggle, virtual so- cial environments, election campaigns, elections, electronic voting. Technological development of modern information and communication technologies allows creation of virtual social environments with predefned properties [17; 23], which is a way for creating large-scale platforms permitting the expression of opinions and organization of discussions on topical political issues, where everyone can get the necessary information, ask a question and get an answer in real time, join the virtual community by interests to share original information and become an important element in the politicized part of society [31].