VIRTUAL POLITICIANS AS A MANIFESTATION OF THE POWER ALGORITHMIZING

Aim. To identify the specifics of the phenomenon of virtual politicians as a manifestation of the power algorithmizing.
Methodology. The main scientific methods are critical discourse analysis of specialized literature and case study analysis of the implementation of virtual policy projects. The criteria of the case analysis method were the connection of virtual politicians with elections, electoral, and electoral processes and the dependence of virtual politicians’ projects on candidates, parties, and politicized initiative groups. For a qualitative interpretation of the phenomenon of virtual politicians, the author’s model of digital adaptation was used, as well as models of the technological hype cycle and algocracy.
Results. The conducted case study analysis revealed that the overall trend shows an increase in the global adoption of virtual political technologies from 2000 to 2025, with this growth being oscillatory rather than exponential. It is noted that the power algorithmizing, manifested in the automation of collection and analysis of political information, forecasting, recursiveness, and the practice of rating people’s actions, has not yet led to the abolition of political representation and the traditional type of politician. The basic principles of representative public policy remain unchanged. At the same time, a close relationship between parties and virtual political projects has been established. Most likely, through such projects, parties are experimenting with provocative techniques for attracting voter interest in their activities. The prospects and challenges of the power algorithmizing for modern society, underlying the external effects of the proliferation of virtual political projects, are identified.
Research implications. The author introduces the interpretation of virtual politicians as specialized intelligent systems focused on interaction with the electorate. The proposed model of digital adaptation has practical significance for clarifying the prospects and challenges of implementing digital technologies such as virtual politicians in modern society. It is emphasized that digital adaptation manifests itself in the adjustment of the traditional “state – representative – voter” model to a new “state – representative – virtual politician – voter” model. An examination of virtual politician cases demonstrates the specifics of digital adaptation: on the one hand, political leaders, candidates, and parties are forced to adapt to the realities of digital communications, which are algorithmic in nature. On the other hand, parties and candidates, while creating virtual politician projects, still endow them with anthropological characteristics.

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