The political worldview of VKontakte communities: The experience of analyzing the subjective space of politics in a network society

Abstract

The article presents the results of a theoretical analysis of the political worldview as part of the subjective space of politics in a network society and its empirical verification. The author shows that the integration of phenomenology and the network approach allows researchers to advance their understanding of content and parameters of the political worldview of network communities as part of the subjective space of modern public policy. The analysis of the discourse of network communities makes it possible to identify, describe and analyze the features of their political worldview. The author presents an original methodology, created within the framework of the RFBR research project “Subjective Space of Politics: Opportunities and Challenges of a Network Society”, for studying the political world view of network communities and the empirical results obtained with its usage. In particular, the typology of political worldviews existing in network communities is described. It reflects the structural and substantive components of the political worldview in the discourse of network communities: the core of the political worldview (reflecting the ontological level of the political worldview, including images of the Motherland, state, power), political roles, political institutions (the last two clusters reflect the basic level of the political worldview elements), political participation (reflects the instrumental level of the political worldview), socio-political problems). The typology of political worldviews of network communities identified (zero, horizontal, non-political, activity and political world view of active resistance) requires verification in further research. An important result of the empirical analysis is the identification of two political worldview profiles (closed and open) and their connection with the dominant type of participant socio-political activity in network communities. Further study in this direction will improve analytical and predictive tools for research and practical work with network communities.