printThe Relevance of Social Risks in Online and Offline Space:
a Comparative Study
Shchekotin E.V.
Сand. Sci. (Philos.), Assoc. Prof., Head of the Department of Philosophy, History and Law, Siberian State University of Water Transport, Novosibirsk, Russia; SibSUTIS, Novosibirsk, Russia evgvik1978@mail.ru
Kashpur V.V.
Сand. Sci. (Sociol.), Assoc. Prof., Head of the Department of Sociology, Tomsk State University, Tomsk, Russia vitkashpur@mail.ru
Abbasova A.A.-K.
Postgraduate student at the Department of Sociology, Tomsk State University, Tomsk, Russia abbasovalina@gmail.com
Shchekotin E.V., Kashpur V.V., Abbasova A.A.-K. The Relevance of Social Risks in Online and Offline Space: a Comparative Study. Sotsiologicheskie issledovaniya [Sociological Studies]. 2026. No 5. P. 129-140
The article presents empirical results of a study of social risks, which was conducted offline and online using two different methods. The relevance of social risks in the offline space was measured using the traditional survey method for sociology in three regions of Western Siberia – Kemerovo, Novosibirsk and Tomsk regions. It is shown that the most pressing problems in the representation of residents of these regions are economic (inflation and sharp price increases, poverty) and environmental problems. To measure the relevance of social risks in the online space, a source of information such as search query statistics in the Yandex search engine was used. For this purpose, 79 thematic markers (search queries) were selected, which reflect various types of social risks. Using a tool such as the index of interest, which is available in the Yandex service, Wordstat identified the most pressing risks for each of the regions: for the Kemerovo region – unemployment and environmental problems, for the Novosibirsk region – social inequality, for the Tomsk region – environmental problems and inflation and a sharp rise in prices. At the final stage, a comparative analysis of the rating of social problems obtained using two different tools was carried out, which showed significant similarity of actual social risks for residents of the three regions.
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