Information Policy of the Russian Federation: Legal and Administrative Aspect

This publication is devoted to a comprehensive description of the current state of Russian information policy in terms of actual management practices and the legal and regulatory mechanism. The tasks of formulating the author's relevant concept of information policy, conducting a block (cluster) analysis of the main directions of information policy implemented in actual Russian political and legal practices, establishing legal problems of the current state of Russian information policy and forming proposals for resolving the identified difficulties are being solved. The following research methods are used: discursive and system-structural approaches, block (cluster) analysis, formal-legal method, literal, complex and contextual interpretation of legal norms. The author proposes the concept of information policy as an independent direction of the internal government course operating in the national political and legal order, expressed in the implementation by public authorities and civil society institutions of normative, managerial, broadcasting, preventive, suppressive and signaling measures within the established competencies aimed at ensuring a unified information exchange within the country and maintaining the information security regime. The propaedeutic, broadcasting, formal-legal, protective, control and supervisory, and suppressive blocks of Russian information policy are identified and characterized. The problems of the current state of information policy related to the absence of a codified comprehensive regulatory legal act on the issue of information legal relations and typology of information products are identified, and ways to eliminate the identified problems are proposed. In conclusion, it is argued that the suggested directions for improving the legal regulation of information policy will not only provide a more substantive disclosure of the main lines of the state’s information agenda but also help systematize and classify different types of information to establish clear legal regimes for its dissemination.