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Philology: scientific researches
Reference:

Folklore in Social Networks (Using the Example of Twitter and Telegram)

Van Tinyan'

Postgraduate Student, Department of the Russian Language and Methods of its Teaching, Peoples' Friendship University of Russia (RUDN)

117198, Russia, Moscow, ul. miklukho-Maklaya, 6, 6

1042218032@rudn.ru
Other publications by this author
 

 

DOI:

10.7256/2454-0749.2023.2.39253

EDN:

HJEFIP

Received:

25-11-2022


Published:

05-03-2023


Abstract: Folklore is a very old phenomenon that has undergone great changes over the entire period of its existence. The telecommunications revolution has significantly changed our lives, and folklore has undergone the same changes, which has penetrated into the space of digital communications, social networks. This actualized the study of this topic in modern linguistic science. In accordance with the high relevance of this topic, folklore in social networks such as Twitter and Telegram became the object of the article's research. In the course of the work, general scientific methods of induction, deduction, synthesis, abstraction were used, as well as particular methods of linguistic research – descriptive method, typological method, method of formalization and method of logical comparison. Through the conducted research, it was found out that modern folklore has moved into the field of digital communications, where it has been actively developed, many new forms of folklore and channels for its dissemination have appeared. The results of the work can be used as a theoretical basis containing a systematic range of works on folklore, as well as as a basis for practical application when working in the field of Internet communications, public relations, mass media, journalism. Along with the development of society, language also develops, new forms of expression appear, thanks to the mass media it has become much easier to create and distribute them. Folklore is no exception in this sense – it has become one of the means of communication, expression of emotions to describe the current situation on the Internet, the pandemic is a vivid result of that. It has become the main theme of modern folklore since 2020.


Keywords:

Folklore, social network, Internet, pandemic, Covid-19, digitalization, internet folklore, meme, myth - making, media viruses

This article is automatically translated.

 One of the signs of the national identity of peoples is their oral folk art, which is otherwise called folklore.

This work reflects the peculiarities of people's everyday life, their character traits, therefore, in order to preserve the identity of peoples, it is important to pay special attention to their oral folk art.

In the Dictionary of the Russian language by S. I. Ozhegov, "folklore" means folk art or a set of folk ritual actions [7]. In the Soviet Historical Encyclopedia edited by E. M. Zhukov, "folklore" was designated as poetry from the people, as oral folk art of the broad masses of the population, a combination of these types of creativity. As society developed, new forms and varieties emerged in it that reflected the interests of various social strata of the population, or the social and everyday characteristics of a particular group of people (production, social organizing, ceremonial, gaming, aesthetic, cognitive genres, etc.). The development of writing influenced the emergence of new, previously non-existent forms of folklore, such as an epic, a fairy tale, a song, etc. [11]. According to V. N. Poklonskaya, despite the constant changes and the emergence of new forms and varieties of folklore, it has always had some characteristics that distinguish it from other forms of folk art. Among them: oral, collectivity, nationality, variability, combination of words with artistic elements of other arts. These characteristics may vary slightly, but, in general, they are more or less stable in the works of Russian researchers who have studied folklore [9, pp. 210-211].

In the opinion of modern authors, folklore is the reaction of people to this or that event taking place in their lives. Such events give us an idea of what is contained in a person's perception of an incident in his life [8, pp. 145-157].

One of the main events of the XXI century was the spread of the Internet and digital means of communication, which affected the way of life of people.  If initially folklore was created and broadcast mostly through oral folk art, today the Internet communication of various groups has become the main platform for creative activity in creating works of folk art. For example, there are many channels in the Telegram social network, the participants of which are people united by one interest. Such a channel can be Covid Resistance, which is one of the largest platforms for generating and replicating fakes about the Covid-19 pandemic. They replicated various statements on the topic of folklore, which received a huge number of reactions: "I got vaccinated – walk boldly!"; "Everyone is a blacksmith of his own antibodies"; "Rome was not vaccinated in one day"; "Hand washes hand, preferably thirty seconds."

The Internet, as an integral part of the life of more than half of the population, is both a carrier of works of folk art and its creator. In the first case, we are talking about social networking sites, forums, channels, groups, chats in which information is stored. In the second case, we are talking about the same platforms, but now understood as a means of active communication and creativity of a person in which something new is already being created. Today we can constantly observe how certain social, political and economic events cause a heated discussion on social networks, a public response. For example, such an event could be the Covid-19 pandemic, which caused a violent reaction of society, especially during the introduction of lockdown and provoked the appearance of a huge number of folklore texts. So they wrote on social networks: "The authorities are introducing a lockdown for a week; the Russians are Gena, I'm in Egypt"; "The personal level of lockdown has stopped dividing T–shirts into homemade and non–homemade"; "The very moment when the coronavirus does not end in any way, and the lockdown is being extended and extended." 

Folk art in social networks in the works of various authors has received its name. For example, A. Arkhipova believes that it is most correct to call this phenomenon "Internet folklore". This point of view is shared by other authors, such as O. K. Melnikova, T. I. Suslova and A.V. Savchenko [6, pp. 50-56; 10].

According to A.V. Kolistratova, it is more correct to call folklore on the Internet "network folklore", since it is "network connections" in the Internet environment that allow folk art not only to originate within digital platforms, but also to spread with great speed, which is possible precisely thanks to the communicative capabilities of social networks [5, pp. 36-41]. A.V. Kolistratova writes that the Internet gives three main advantages to users, which allow folklore to form and spread with great speed from small communities of the network to wide groups of the population, among them: virtuality, communication, anonymity.

There are also other related concepts that are determinants of folklore on the Internet. For example, such a concept can be "myth-making" or "fake". They were studied by the domestic author M. V. Zagidullina [4, pp. 37-42]. Many myths and fictions existed in society during the height of the pandemic, especially often they related to the topic of vaccination. So, for example, the most popular fake and myth of that time was the unproven information that vaccination is a mass action of "chipping" people, which is carried out under the guise of a pandemic by members of the "secret world government". It is worth noting that this myth did not just exist, a huge part of the population willingly believed in it. Also, myths were actively replicated on social networks that people who smoke are less susceptible to infection; alcohol helps fight coronavirus; lemon, ginger and garlic help treat coronavirus.

Thus, today "myth–making" and "fake color" have become extremely relevant, the Internet is the soil for a huge number of fakes, one can even say that it is easier to find unreliable information in it today than something verified.

E. V. Levantseva writes that folklore in social networks is mainly "mediaviruses", namely, dangerous phenomena of communication that "carry risks of infection of the communicative field" [3, pp. 125-130].

D. Akarali believes that the main tool for the formation of folklore in social networks are "botnets", the so-called tools for promoting content, which can act as destributers of various information, including folklore [12, pp. 1-15]. So, for example, the Yandex service has a special "Context" platform, with which you can create ads that will be displayed to Yandex search users when entering any queries. Yandex Context is used not only by advertisers, but also by ordinary people who want to promote this or that information. With the help of the platform, you can also promote other information, for example, about covid. This was how information about vaccination was promoted, points where you can take an analysis for Covid-19 were promoted, advertising about the need to wear masks, gloves and other protective equipment was promoted, and finally, requests for social distance were promoted.

There is another variant of folklore research on the Internet – "meme". These categories have become the main object of research by E. M. Alexandrova, who believes that the rapid growth of visual information has affected the perception and thinking of a person, it has become easier for people to perceive visual material. A meme is a visualized joke, an anecdote that is created by users of social networks and distributed by them to a wide audience. Memes, in her opinion, have become the main form of Internet folklore today [1, pp. 65-69]. So, for example, a meme with the image of the heroes of the movie "Back to the Future" became popular, one of whom says: "Doc, I need to go to 2020," and the second one answers him: "Hmmm, perhaps it's not worth it, Marty."

 

Figure 1. Meme about Covid-19 from the movie "Back to the Future"Another popular meme with a photo of a disappointed Will Smith and the caption "People in 2020 who have nothing left to surprise:".

 

 

Figure 2. Meme about Covid-19 with Will SmithAnd another popular meme with two versions of the hero of the movie "Aquaman": the first one looks strong and fit, under this picture is the signature "My plans for 2020"; in the second picture is the same person, but has already added a lot of extra pounds with the signature "My life in 2020".

 

Figure 3. Meme about Covid-19 with the hero of the movie "Aquaman"Thus, we see that today the research of Internet folklore is a rather fragmented layer of scientific research.

 

The Internet itself is a fairly broad term, it has many structures, associations, properties, characteristics. In science today there is no consolidated research on the topic of folklore on the Internet, and all theoretical developments on this topic are rather related to the study of one or another property of social networks, which affects the formation of folk art. At the same time, the Internet is a holistic phenomenon that needs to be studied in conjunction with all its forms and characteristics, only then it will be possible to get a full and multifaceted picture of a phenomenon, which in our case is folklore.

References
1. Alexandrova E. M. Creolized meme as a new form of existence of language jokes // Philological Sciences. Questions of theory and practice. 2017. No. 8-2 (74). 65-69.
2. Arkhipova A. S. Why tell jokes. From Corpus Analysis to the Sociology of Folklore // Methods and Concepts in Folkloristics and Cultural Anthropology (late 20th-early 21st century): Proceedings of the XVI International School-Conference on Folkloristics, Sociolinguistics and Cultural Anthropology. M.: RGGU, 2016. S. 37-39.
3. Vyrovtseva E. V. Stylistic features of print media texts as a form of media virus // Bulletin of the Chelyabinsk State University, 2013. No. 21 (312). pp. 125-130.
4. Zagidullina M.V. The myth-creating function of rumors within the framework of folknet: on the issue of expanding the classical theory of folklore // Bulletin of the Chelyabinsk State University, 2009. No. 34. P. 37-42.
5. Kolistratova A. V. From archaic to network folklore: some results of the linguosemiotic analysis of folklore phenomena as signs of culture // Bulletin of the Irkutsk State Linguistic University, 2011. No. 3 (15). pp. 36-41.
6. Melnikova O. K. Genre-Species Differentiation of Language Creativity on the Internet and Runet // Kazan Linguistic Journal, 2018. No. 3. P. 50-56.
7. Ozhegov S.I. Explanatory dictionary of the Russian language / Ed. prof. L.I. Skvortsova. M.: Mir i obrazovanie, 2014. 1376 p.
8. Pavlyuk T. P., Dubinets Z. A. Features of the conceptualization of the concept of "quarantine" in modern Internet folklore // Philology and man, 2021. No. 3. P. 145-157
9. V. N. Poklonskaya, E. V. Kriklivets, N. V. Golubovich, S. V. Lapunov, and V. V. Shumko, Folkloristics. Mythology. Literature (educational and methodological complex) Ed. V. N. Poklonskaya.-Vitebsk: Publishing house of UO "VSU im. P. M. Masherova, 2009. 245 p.
10. Suslova T. I., Savchenko A. V. Internet folklore as a means of communication // Journalistic Yearbook, 2015. No. 4. P. 123-127.
11. Soviet Historical Encyclopedia: In 16 vols. M.: State Scientific Publishing House "Soviet Encyclopedia", 1976. 1232 p.
12. Acarali D. et al. Survey of approaches and features for the identification of HTTP-based botnet traffic // Journal of Network and Computer Applications. 2016. No. 76. P. 1-15.
13. Yandex.Context URL: https://contest.yandex.ru/
14. The main memes of 2021 according to VKontakte URL: https://daily.afisha.ru/news/58407-glavnye-memy-2021-goda-po-versii-vkontakte

Peer Review

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The article submitted for consideration "Folklore in social networks (using the example of Twitter and Telegram)", proposed for publication in the journal "Philology: Scientific Research", is undoubtedly relevant, due to the consideration of oral folk art, which is expressed in our days in publications in the virtual space. According to the author, folklore is the reaction of people to this or that event taking place in their lives. And in modern realities, part of life takes place in a virtual space, and social networks play a big role in people's lives. The author attempts to describe new elements of the virtual space that have become a part of people's lives. The author comes to the conclusion that today the research of Internet folklore is a rather fragmented layer of scientific research. The article is innovative, one of the first in Russian linguistics devoted to the study of such topics in the 21st century. The article presents a research methodology, the choice of which is quite adequate to the goals and objectives of the work. The author turns, among other things, to various methods to confirm the hypothesis put forward. The following research methods are used: logical-semantic analysis, hermeneutical and comparative methods. This work was done professionally, in compliance with the basic canons of scientific research. The research was carried out in line with modern scientific approaches, the work consists of an introduction containing the formulation of the problem, the main part, traditionally starting with a review of theoretical sources and scientific directions, a research and a final one, which presents the conclusions obtained by the author. It should be noted that the introductory part does not contain historical information on the study of this issue both in general (research directions) and in particular. There are no references to the work of the predecessors. In addition, the objectives and purpose of the study are not clear, which does not allow them to be correlated with the conclusions obtained. Unfortunately, the author does not provide information about the case under study. The scope and principles of sampling the linguistic material on which the study is based are also unclear. The bibliography of the article contains 14 sources, including theoretical works in both Russian and English. Unfortunately, the article does not contain references to fundamental works such as monographs, PhD and doctoral dissertations. In general, it should be noted that the article is written in a simple, understandable language for the reader. Typos, spelling and syntactic errors, inaccuracies in the text of the work were not found. The comments made are not significant and do not affect the overall positive impression of the reviewed work. The practical significance of the research lies in the possibility of using its results in the process of teaching university courses in textual studies, folklore studies, and text theory. The article will undoubtedly be useful to a wide range of people, philologists, undergraduates and graduate students of specialized universities. The article "Folklore in social networks (using the example of Twitter and Telegram)" can be recommended for publication in a scientific journal.