Political mythologization in a digital environment as a communicative strategy of candidate image formation during election period

Abstract

This article deals with the study of myths in political communication and level's specification of mythological impact on political image construction. The authors propose to distinguish “internal mythologization” when a politician with a team are considered to be a source of mythmaking, and “external mythologization”initiated by non-affiliated representatives of different socialgroups. It is concerned with “internal mythologization” as a communicative strategy for constructing a politician's image during election period and analyses the representation features of four main political myths(social ideal, enemy, identity community and hero-saviour) in communication of one of the new leaders of Russia's political agenda and the Communist Party's candidate for the 2018 presidential election Pavel Grudinin. Much attention is given to the identification of verbal and visual means, through which these political myths are explicated in election videos, as well as the definition of emotional-evaluative connotations that can influence the construction of political image.