Information Flows in Regional New Media and Their Relation to Political Stability (Using the Example of the Saratov Region)

New media are an important channel for shaping public opinion, but their impact is twofold: they can both build trust and create risks. The aim of this study is to identify and describe the network structures of the media space to assess their role in maintaining stability. The empirical database includes 424,000 publications for the period from September 1 to October 31, 2025, collected from 1,324 regional sources on the VKontakte, Odnoklassniki, Telegram, and Zen platforms with a minimum audience of 250 subscribers. Links between sources are identified based on textual similarity and publication time, after which a directed weighted reprint graph is constructed. Centrality analysis and the Louvain algorithm made it possible to identify key information sources, dissemination intermediaries, and tightly connected communities (“echo chambers”), revealing the differentiated structure of influence in the regional media space.