Discursive Fields and Linguistic Patterns in the Online Space

Abstract

Abstract: The digital context of the “post-truth” era conditioned by the networkization and digitalization of all spheres of life transforms network content which forms the basis of discursive fields in the online space. Applied research of D. Trump's election campaign in March–June 2020 on Twitter to analyze discursive fields and linguistic patterns allowed the authors to find answers to the following questions: How do discursive fields arise in the online space? How are discursive fields and linguistic patterns formed in the online space during the election campaigns? What methods can be used to study the development of discursive fields and predict their impact on offline practices of citizens and groups of citizens? How do discursive fields affect citizens' electoral behavior? How are vectors of destructive influence formed in discursive fields in the online space? The investigated case of D. Trump's election campaign visualizes how dis¬cursive fields and the linguistic patterns they produce initiate socio-political actions / practices aimed at supporting or protesting the current president and candidate for the presidency of the United States in the context of the latent deployment of immigration issues and under pressure the spreading pandemic “COVID-19”. In conclusion, it is stated that the strategy of using recurrent messages to form discursive fields in the online space in the face of urgent internal state problems and a global external threat leads to the emergence of “gaps” at the border of the core of the discursive field. Keywords: online space, election campaign, Donald Trump, network vi¬sual analysis, linguistic discursive analysis, recurrent messages.