The peculiarities of sociopolitical news discourse on the example of regional news public pages in the social network VKontakte

Abstract

The subject of this research is the news content of public pages in the social network VKontakte. The goal consists in examination of peculiarities of organization of the regional news discourse, comparison of Tomsk and Novosibirsk news public pages. For achieving the set goal, the article employs the methods of qualitative (manual coding and machine learning) and quantitative data processing (content analysis, thematic analysis, psycholinguistic analysis). The empirical material contains regional news reports on sociopolitical topics, available for public viewing in the social network VKontakte (Tomsk and Novosibirsk). Analysis is conducted on the 3,786 postings in Novosibirsk and 887 postings in Tomsk. The author determines peculiarities and differences of media consumption depending on the region. It is noted that the federal news enjoy greater popularity among the users of the social network VKontakte; Tomsk residents are more concerned with the news reports covering regional events. The article reveals the specifics of creating news content characterized by the tendency towards narrativization of the news discourse. The prevalent narrative strategy of the media authors of regional news public pages consists in factual interpretation of the material with responses of high-ranking officials, authorized representatives of various structures, as well as regular persons (their opinions and attitudes, value judgments).