Communicative leadership in the local internet communities

The article describes the characteristic of leadership features in the local Internet communities. Social stratification analysis of local online communities is based on the results of repeated empirical research conducted in 2014. In order to consider the manifestations of various aspects of leadership in the modern local online communities the sociological researches were carried out, they applied two empirical methods: an online survey (the sample size contained 406 persons) and an expert survey (sample size of 8 persons). The object of study was members operating in the Internet virtual communities, localized within the major Russian cities. The subject of the study were opinions of virtual teams participants on the features of stratification structure, presence of network leaders, specificity of interaction between representatives of various strata of the local online communities. The abstract of the article can be used in the implementation of socio-philosophical and sociological analysis of the phenomena caused by the development of the Internet.