Illusory individualism and false collectivism: new nominations for networking

Abstract

The issue of modern communication on the Internet in the aspect of the idea of the transformation of youth values, in particular the idea of individualism as a characteristic feature of youth in the XXI century is considered in the article. The work was carried out with financial support from the Russian Foundation for Basic Research and the EISR within the framework of scientific project No. 21-011-31221. The aim of the study is to consider the lexical representation of the ideas of individualism and collectivism in Internet communication as two conceptual views on life. The methods of component, contextual, interpretive types of analysis are used to study neologisms that have appeared in the Russian language in the last 20 years as nominations new for Russian reality associated with manifestations of individualism and collectivism in Internet interaction. It is emphasized that social networks have become a special space for youth communication, which created new conditions for the emergence and development of previously unknown forms of communication, such as influencers, cyberbullying, shaming, guerrilla marketing, etc. The meanings of new words and their speech use are analyzed. The results show that the ideas about the individualism of modern youth are not as unambiguous as it might seem at first glance. It is proved that a number of new words, such as influencer, ambassadorship, evangelism, etc., which name phenomena that seem to be associated with individualistic manifestations of personality, actualize the semantics of a person's dependence on public opinion, likes and dislikes, approval of followers, etc., and not opposing oneself to the collective, as presented in the definition of the word individualism. It is noted that at the same time, a person's desire to unite with other people in social networks has not disappeared anywhere, it manifests itself in the formation of communities, groups, in communication on forums, however, it has acquired the form of unstable ties, since there are few serious grounds for unification. The data of linguistic analysis partially verify the results of studies of individualism obtained by sociologists, educators, psychologists and other representatives of other sciences.