Mediatization and Demediatization in the Digital Environment: the Case of K. Bogomolov’s Conservative Manifesto “The Abduction of Europa 2.0.”

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Dmitry P. Gavra

Doctor of Sociology, Professor, Head of the Chair of Public Relations in Business, St. Petersburg State University, St. Petersburg, Russia

e-mail: d.gavra@spbu.ru
Elena V. Bykova

Doctor of Philology, Associate Professor at the Chair of Public Relations in Business, St. Petersburg State University, St. Petersburg, Russia

e-mail: e.bykova@spbu.ru

Section: New Media

The article is devoted to the theory of mediatization of local newsworthy events with value-political content in a digital society and an empirical study of the processes of mediatization-demediatization in relation to a particular case, namely the reaction of social network users to the publication of the Manifesto "The Abduction of Europa 2.0." by Russian theatre and film director Konstantin Bogomolov (February 10, 2021). The authors show the transformation of the processes of political agenda setting on social networks in the conditions of the expansion of influencers and traffic monopolists of various scales. They discuss the category of mediatization, highlight the levels of mediatization, and show the possibility of implementing mediatization processes at the micro level. The concept of a cultural and aesthetic incident as a reason for mediatization is introduced, the factors influencing the mediatization potential of such an incident are specified. The concept of demediatization is introduced and its characteristics at the macro and micro levels are described. Empirical verification of hypotheses about ontology and tools of local demediatization is carried out on the example of network discussions around K. Bogomolov's Manifesto "The Abduction of Europa 2.0." The study shows how the network community transferred the incident discussed to the trajectory of demediatization, blurring the value narrative and bringing down the discussion to the mundane level. The empirical basis was the original text of the Manifesto, published on the website of Novaya Gazeta and distributed on social networks Instagram/Facebook/Twitter (blocked in Russia by court order). YouTube social network users' comments were analyzed for the period from 10.02.2021 to 10.03.2021. The processing of the material collected by the hashtags #Bogomolov #Manifest with the help of the continuous sampling method was carried out by lexico-semantic analysis of the identified value narratives in posts and comments and a comparative analysis of the semantics of the identified narratives.

Keywords: manifesto, political agenda, influencers, culture, mediatization, demediatization, social networks
DOI: 10.30547/vestnik.journ.3.2022.6086

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To cite this article: Gavra D.P., Bykova E.V. (2022) Mediatizatsiya i demediatizatsiya v tsifrovoy srede: keys konservativnogo manifesta K. Bogomolova «Pokhishchenie Evropy 2.0» [Mediatization and Demediatization in the Digital Environment: the Case of K. Bogomolov’s Conservative Manifesto “The Abduction of Europa 2.0.”]. Vestnik Moskovskogo Universiteta. Seriya 10. Zhurnalistika 3: 60–86. DOI: 10.30547/vestnik.journ.3.2022.6086