Barinov D.N. Political discourse in social media: specificity of production and factors of efficiency

Abstract: This article is dedicated to the specificity of production of the network political discourse. The article examines the influence of the conceptual features of Internet upon the political communications in the network space; genre specificity of political discourse; role of cognitive factors on the process of information impact in social media; interaction between the network communities in situation of ideological confrontation; functions of political communications in social media. The research is based on the principles of social constructivism, P. Bourdieu’s concept of symbolic power, R. Barthes’ semiotic concept of myths, and T. A. van Dijk’s theory of discourse analysis. During the course of this research the author determines that the political discourse in social media attain the following features: miniaturization and visualization of the genres of political discourse, application of the methods of carnivalization, use of the means of nonconventional communication. The aforementioned peculiarities create a foundation for realization of the following functions of political communications in the social media: representation and interpretation of the events of political sphere; mobilization of the supporters and expansion of the area of communicative effect; compensation of the normative restrictions of an official information field. One of the conditions of the efficiency of the impact upon the Internet audience is the organization of information flow within social media, within the framework of which the two types of information are being highlighted: conjuncture (situational) and conceptual. The latter possesses an recursive character and forms a contextual frame which affects the processing of information about the current events of political life. It is noted that the interdiscursivity of the network political communications ensure the continuality of mass media content. Due to this fact, it is underlined that despite a horizontal character of interaction in social media, diversification and demassification of audience, the network communications ensure the reproduction of the symbolic power, formed by the “global discourse” of mass media.

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