Communication peculiarities of politized communities in Russianlanguage telegram channels

Abstract

The article presents the results of the analysis of the features of political communication in the Telegram Russian-speaking political communities. Popular Russian-language political Telegram channels with a stable audience have been analyzed. When conducting the study, the case study method was used. The author proves that the traditional five-component model of political communication, developed by G. Lasswell in the 1940s, is preserved in online network communication. The author takes the position that political online communication, having received some new and strengthened the traditional characteristics of offline political communication, cannot be considered something radically different and fundamentally new. An author’s typology of politicized telegram channels is proposed in terms of the dominant expert or manipulative function, the positioning model of the channel’s authorship, and also taking into account such criteria as the style of the message, the presence / absence of feedback, the format of communication between the audience and the author of the posts. It is shown that the “one to many” communication model is of limited use in the Telegram messenger. Strategies for constructing the information part of telegram-channel messages are revealed. Additional metrics have been introduced to measure “digital creolized political content”. The consequences of changing the paradigm adopted in the classical model of political informing the audience and strengthening such characteristics as text manipulativeness, emotiveness, expressiveness, illogicality/incoherence, ideological, syncretism, emotional pathos, eccentricity, rhetorical simplicity, efficiency, gamification of information, interactivity, instantaneous criticism, immediacy of comments. Examples of the use in popular politicized Internet channels of such techniques as “digital demagoguery”, reduced speech style, theatricalization, scenario performances, manipulative creativity, the use of images of fake characters, clickbaiting are given.