Variability of the harmonization narrative of network communication in media discourse

Abstract

This study aims to analyze the variability of the harmonization narrative produced in the process of interaction in new media (social networks, blogosphere, etc.). The empirical material for the study was based on the original posts and comments selected using a stratified sampling method from two frontier regions: North Ossetia-Alania and Dagestan. To achieve this aim, the main trends in the implementation of tactics for harmonizing online communication were identified, which made it possible to determine the main ways of resolving the conflict in the Internet space of the frontier regions. These tactics were analyzed in their connection with the thematic and interpretative vectors in which they are implemented. This further allowed us to reveal the variability of the narrative under consideration. The study is based on discourse, modus, statistic and linguistic analysis. Harmonization tactics were considered in the paradigm of direct dependence of positive communication formation and the promotion of Russian ideas in virtual space. As a result, it is determined that the narrative basis of harmonization is the promotion of Russian civilizational constants, their positive representation and identification with socially significant events. Further analysis of the connection between communication tactics and semantic directions confirms this trend, while demonstrating a high variability of themes (North Ossetia-Alania - 17; Dagestan - 26). All this leads to the functioning of harmonization as a single narrative principle that unites many themes. It is expressed as a complex system surrounding socio-political ideologemes that mark a single civilizational path and are capable of uniting multicultural, multi-ethnic and multi-confessional stratified communities, neutralizing possible conflicts between them. At the same time, the implementation of this narrative is quite variable and includes many themes and sub-themes, differentiated depending on the value systems common in a particular region.