EDUCATIONAL REFORMS AS AN OBJECT OF DIGITAL COMMUNICATION IN PUBLIC ADMINISTRATION: SIX SYSTEMIC CHARACTERISTICS

Abstract

The article substantiates the case for treating digital communication of educational
reforms as a distinct subject area within public administration. It is shown that the dominant linear model
of government communication – "centre – channel – audience" – is analytically inadequate for multi-level
educational reforms and fails to explain why central messages from the ministry do not automatically
translate into local managerial action. The article proposes to regard the social media presence of a
public authority not as an autonomous SMM channel, but as one of the functionally differentiated nodes of
a digital communication ecosystem that also includes the official website of the authority, asynchronous
video platforms (YouTube), synchronous online meetings and webinars (Zoom, Google Meet), messenger
channels, professional-methodological platforms and internal school digital groups. Six systemic
characteristics of educational reforms that form their specific communication contour are systematised: a
long implementation horizon, generating accumulated public fatigue and high sensitivity to political cycles;
multi-audience character with fundamentally different information needs of students, parents, teachers,
principals, founders and local self-government bodies; heightened emotional sensitivity and susceptibility
to myth-making amplified by the algorithmic logic of digital platforms; critical dependence on local
implementers – school principals and teachers as "street-level bureaucrats"; cross-sectoral institutional
complexity with distributed roles between the central regulator, regional and local self-government, higher
education institutions and the external assessment system; the presence of minors as indirect but
important stakeholders, which sets a heightened ethical framework for digital communication. Each
characteristic is correlated with current empirical and theoretical research. An analytical table of
communication implications of each characteristic for the design of digital reform communication is
proposed. It is concluded that effective digital communication of educational reform is possible only under
a deliberate functional distribution of roles between elements of the digital ecosystem, while social media
is a strong instrument of public signalling, explanation, navigation, legitimation and working with fears, but
does not replace methodological support, regulatory clarity or local professional adaptation.