Telegram Bots and Groups as a Communication Channel between Authorities and Citizens

The article discusses bots and Telegram channels to study the communicative practices of urban residents. The methods of automated information unloading, intelligent data processing and thematic modeling based on machine learning are used in the work. The paper analyzes two entities - channels in Telegram and state bots in Telegram. For the channels, the direction was selected - the channels of the governors of the regions of the Russian Federation, the channel of the head was selected for each region, followed by the unloading of posts. The total base of uploaded messages was 87.5 thousand messages. The goal was set - using the available data set representing posts collected on the channels of the heads of regions, to automatically determine which topics are mentioned in the texts. The clustering method based on machine learning was used for the analysis. As a result, it was possible to identify the main topics that are covered in different regions. The second entity under study is government bots aimed at providing services to citizens or for informing. 53 bots were selected and then divided into 13 categories. As a result, a catalog of bots was compiled and possible methods of comparative analysis in future studies were proposed. The tools tested as part of the pilot project have shown their promise, and the data obtained can be used by both researchers and representatives of government agencies. Thus, the data obtained allow us to evaluate the main topics that are covered in the reports of officials.