On the Issue of Using the Terms “subject”, “actor”, “discoursant” in the Context of a Sociological Research of Digital Polylogue

Introduction. The aim of the article is to define the differences in the use of the terms ‘subject’ and ‘actor’ in the context of social science disciplines and the terms ‘subject of management’ and ‘discursant’ in the sociology of management. The purpose of the article is related to the formulation of the task of sociological research. All this takes into account the specifics of the subject of management in modern self-organizing communities conducting remote polylogue.

Methodology and sources. The works of A. A. Bogdanov, S. L. Rubinstein, V. E. Lepsky, A. A. Merzlyakov, B. Latour, M. Archer were used during the work with the article. The descriptive approach which was used allowed us to specify the key terms. The qualitative aspect of the content analysis revealed interpretations of the terms in different scientific disciplines, while the quantitative aspect revealed research interest in the phenomenon. The apperception method enriched the existing ideas about the subjects of management.

Results and discussion. Based on the identified problems, the result of the justified use of the term ‘management subject’ as opposed to the term ‘actor’ has been achieved. For polysubject environments, including remote polylogue in the digital environment, it is necessary to use the term ‘polysubject’ at the level of generalisation, and at the individual level the introduction of the special term ‘discursant’ is proposed, which allows us to put emphasis on the definition of the ontological component of the subject of management.

Conclusion. The study showed that in the paradigm of the polysubject in the digital polylogue it is possible to set a task for a relevant sociological study related to the increased activity of self-organizing communities in the digital environment.

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