Structural Dynamics of Network Frames in the Context of the Legitimacy Crisis in Libyan Jamahiriya (based on the Internet comments)

Abstract

The article deals with the English Internet comments viewed as non-professional political discourse of everyday network communication. In these comments the videos on the legitimacy crisis in Libya in the early 2010s are discussed. Considering the array of commentary texts as a conceptual system, we study the non-professional political discourse related to the Libyan crisis in terms of frame analysis. Since the consequences of this crisis are felt in the world politics to this day, the users keep commenting on it regularly, it makes it possible to study the dynamics of the conceptual discursive structures. For the purpose we chose frames as mental models that allow us to study linguistic consciousness by dividing texts into fragments reflecting the accumulated knowledge and experience of a person about stereotypical situations. Frame modeling is carried out with the help of the FrameNet frame base. Variants of frame models constructed through the analysis of the network discursive material, are called network frames. The study of comments relating to different periods of time allows us to identify the dynamics of the changes in the structure and content of the key frames that describe the legitimacy crisis in Libya.