АКСИОЛОГИЧЕСКАЯ ФУНКЦИЯ ПРЕСС-КОНФЕРЕНЦИЙ ПРЕЗИДЕНТА В ПУБЛИЧНОЙ ПОЛИТИКЕ СОВРЕМЕННОЙ РОССИИ

Abstract

The big press conferences of the President of Russia over the past two decades has become a tool for expressing the official position, public goal-setting, as well as a kind of «reconciliation» of the values of the political elite and Russian society. In this paper we purpose to identify value connotations in the discursive practices of participants of these press conferences in the 2001-2021. We want to complement existing empirical studies of public policy and adapt well-known theories of political axiology to Russian practice. We use such methods as cross-cultural research; content analysis; clustering and mapping; analysis of secondary sociological data; analysis of macroeconomic statistics; correlation analysis etc. We revealed the strengthening of the materialistic component of public discourse (by Ronald Inglehart) during periods of economic crisis. Generational gap is also influence on the structure of political values. Also we confirmed the Geert Hofstede’s thesis about the collectivist values dominance and high power distance in Russian society. Russian political discourse gravitates towards both egalitarian values (by Shalom Schwartz) and liberal values (by Milton Rokeach). We found a negative statistical relationships between the frequency of public mention of political values and their approval by the respondents, as well as between the frequency of using axiologemes with the dynamics of key macroeconomic indicators. The increase in the frequency of mentioning political values during periods of economic recession we interpret as attempts by the elite to rally around the flag in the face of economic difficulties. Persistent negative connotations between the public voicing of political values and their perception by respondents indicate the existence of a latent value conflict between the elite and society, which manifests itself in an increase in the demand for change.