Authors

Discussion

Affective communication between citizens and authorities is a powerful tool for carrying out unpopular reforms, masking disturbing discourses or justifying military actions. Direct communication between citizens and authorities is more common to the authoritarian populist regimes. This technique has repeatedly confirmed its effectiveness in strengthening the centralization and personalization of power, as well as in maintaining an authoritarian social contract between society and the government. Communication between citizens and the authorities through the complaint mechanism is popular in contemporary Russia, similarly with the Soviet and pre-Soviet past. The complaint differs from other types of applications to the authorities in that it contains a request for justice and, to a certain extent, competes with legal institutions in the function of justice restoration. Through critical discourse analysis this research investigates complaints, addressed to the President of Russian Federation, delivered during annual teleconferences, submitted in written and oral forms through online resources, and uploaded on YouTube since 2015 till this moment.