Issue

Content:

• Theory of Journalism and Media

  «Brand Media Market in Russia: Definitions, Classification, Characteristics»

  The research is devoted to the phenomenon of brand media and brand journalism, that is to say, online publications which use professional journalistic standards when creating content in marketing communications. The authors formulate the current definitions and key characteristics of the phenomenon, summarizing the Russian and English-speaking academic experience accumulated so far. For the first time, the article attempts to describe the scale of the market: out of the top 200 companies in the RAEX-600 rating, only 22 have brand media; the total number of publications is 30 because two companies among these 22 have more than three media outlets. The study describes the state of the identified brand media in the first half of 2022 and serves as a starting point for analyzing the further dynamics of the media market segment. In addition to descriptive analysis and formulation of definitions, the authors of the article created two scales for media mapping. The first one highlights the leaders whose content is most useful for a wide audience. The second one presents a range of standards between corporate and journalistic ones, where typical brand media occupy a median position. The results of the market description and definition creation were authorized through expert interviews with brand media executives and sampling participants. Thus, in the public professional and academic discourse, the authors keep track of significant assessments and understandings of the brand media market and general ideas about the object of research. The practical significance of the work lies in specifying the arguments for a business that chooses brand media as a working marketing tool and the arguments for communication agencies that solve similar tasks at the request of businesses.
  Keywords: brand media, brand journalism, marketing, media market, professional standards
  DOI: 10.30547/vestnik.journ.6.2022.327
  Kamilla R. Nigmatullina, Natalia A. Pavlushkina 3

• «Formation of the Media Image of the State in the Context of Mediatization of Political Communication»

  Today, the media sphere often plays a role of the most common place for citizens’ contact with the political process, which changes its characteristics while transferring from the field of objective reality to the field of its mediatized representation. The components of the constructed media reality of the political process are media images. This article considers the phenomenon of mediatization. of political communication as a key concept for understanding the formation of media images of various political institutions, including the state. The article systematizes different approaches to the definition of the concept of media image and to the methodology of its analysis, and also observes some features of constructing media images of the state. Media images, which have the potential to influence the audience’s opinion regarding the processes and phenomena they reflect, are considered to be an effective management resource of public policy. Therefore, studying the formation of images of political subjects, including states, in mediatized political communication is a scholarly topic of great interest for further research.
  Keywords: media image, mediatization, political communication, mediatization of policy, media image of the state
  DOI: 10.30547/vestnik.journ.6.2022.2856
  Anna N. Gureeva, Polina A. Kireeva 28
• New Media

  «Animalistic Metaphor in the Modern Political Media Discourse»

  This article shows the specifics of the representation of the contexts of social discontent reflected in the social media space of the Russian regions, clustered according to economic and socio-political characteristics. While clustering, open data of the indices of economic and political development of the regions of Russia were used. Segmentation of the constituent entities of the Russian Federation was carried out using hierarchical cluster analysis (the “complete” method) in the R programming language. Cognitive mapping of the content of social media communities of the constituent entities of the Russian Federation included in different clusters was used to analyze regional features of the representation of contexts of social discontent. The cognitive mapping database was processed in the IBM SPSS Statistics 26.0 program. Among the mapped variables are objects, subjects, spheres, triggers, formats of social discontent, characteristics of user engagement of regional users of digital groups expressing various contexts of social discontent. Event analysis of regional socio-economic and socio-political events made it possible to supplement the results of the interpretation of cognitive mapping data. For a number of regional clusters, a conjugation was revealed between the substantive aspects of social discontent represented in the social media of the Russian regions and the specifics of their economic development. At the same time, an empirical analysis showed the existence of non-linearity in the relationship between social media discourses of social discontent and economic indicators that are characteristic of the other part of regional clusters.
  Keywords: social media, social discontent networks, social discontent contexts, cognitive mapping, cluster analysis, regional studies
  DOI: 10.30547/vestnik.journ.6.2022.5786
  Elena V. Brodovskaya, Anna Yu. Dombrovskaya, Artur A. Azarov, Vladimir A. Lukushin 57
• Media Language

  «Animalistic Metaphor in the Modern Political Media Discourse»

  The purpose of this article is to analyze the dynamics of zoomorphic metaphors in the political media discourse, for which the origins of the metaphorical imagery of animalisms are investigated and the reasons for the predominance of metaphors with varying degrees of invectivity are identified. Zoomorphisms in the political media discourse confirm the idea that a metaphor is not just an eloquent means; it is a way of thinking, comprehending social life, as well as a way of expressing a subjective attitude to the speech object. Categorization and conceptualization of the political fragment of the world picture are realized through metaphorical comprehension of animalisms, which also affects the formation of the connotative part of the media discourse: zoomorphic units are an indispensable constituent part in the system of axiological tools. On the material of media texts of 2022, the authors tried to present the possibilities of combining metaphorical pejorativeness with the principles of tolerant communication, which can be defined as the beginning of a new stage of stabilization of the zoomorphic code in Russian linguoculture. Based on the ideas of the conceptual essence of a metaphor, the authors make a cognitive-discursive and distributive analysis of animalistic metaphors used in modern media. To particularly clarify the specifics of a modern zoomorphic metaphor, the authors applied elements of a diachronic approach: a comparison with zoomorphisms characteristic of other historical periods.
  Keywords: animalisms, metaphor, zoomorphism, political discourse, media language, tolerance, political correctness
  DOI: 10.30547/vestnik.journ.6.2022.87108
  Ludmila A. Brusenskaya, Ella G. Kulikova 87
• Modern Journalism: Subjects and Issues

  «Coverage of Technological Development of the Economy in Russian Business Magazines»

  The article identifies and ranks the main directions of technological development of the economy, covered in the analytical publications of the leading Russian business journals Expert, Profil and Forbes Russia for the period 2017– 2021. In terms of the editorial practices of business media, the study showed that the main driver of the innovative development of the economy is digital technologies. Meanwhile, almost no attention is paid to a number of topical areas of scientific and technological activity (neuro- and quantum technologies, regenerative medicine and the like). Moreover, the smallest number of analytical publications is devoted to technological innovations in the basic sectors of the Russian economy.
  Keywords: scientific and technological development, technological innovations, science journalism, analytical journalism, business journalism, business media, business journals
  DOI: 10.30547/vestnik.journ.6.2022.109129
  Daniil S. Ilchenko 109

• «Interventionist and Detached Types of Watchdog Journalism in Investigative Media Projects»

  The digital media environment provides opportunities for the development of quality journalism, including investigation as a concentrated expression of professional practices, standards and values. New investigative tools and models are emerging. Investigative projects presented exclusively in the online sphere are becoming widespread. However, their empirical analysis is not sufficient in academic literature. The purpose of this study is to determine how these new actors in the journalistic field play the watchdog role of the media. The author of the paper relied on the theory of journalistic roles and the concept of watchdog journalism. Although the idea of the universality of journalistic roles has been questioned in literature, the author proceeds from its methodological applicability to the study due to the specifics of the selected media projects, coming from a desire to perform a watchdog function. The methodological basis of the study is C. Mellado’s approach. The division of watchdog journalism into interventionist and detached types is taken into account. The empirical base of the research was formed by the websites of investigative nature such as Re:Baltica, Bivol, Frontstory. The degree of expression of the criteria of detached and interventionist orientations of watchdog journalism was identified. Special features of the embodiment of the indicators in the texts were outlined. The results of the study show that the projects contain signs of watchdog journalism of both interventionist and detached types and that a high intensity of journalistic control predominates.
  Keywords: journalistic investigations, journalistic roles, watchdog journalism, watchdog role
  DOI: 10.30547/vestnik.journ.6.2022.130148
  Olga I. Agnistikova 130
• Essay

  «The First "Wave" of the Coronavirus Pandemic as Evidence of a "Strange" Attractor in the Russian Segment of the Media Space»

  The article substantiates the definition of the first "wave" of the coronavirus pandemic as a "strange" attractor from the standpoint of its influence on the structure of the Russian segment of the media space. Using a synergetic approach, the author considers the media space as a system that at the turn of the 2010s–2020s is in the bifurcation stage, as a result of which there is a loss of its balance, susceptibility to structural transformations through "smooth" attractors – largely controlled and predictable "evolutionary goals" of a linear nature. Based on the use of interdisciplinary tools and a set of methods, the author concludes that the coronavirus pandemic, in particular, its first "wave", which took place in the spring and summer of 2020, became both a factor and a catalyst for structural changes in the Russian segment of the media space. Representing a form of a "strange" attractor, the first "wave" of the coronavirus pandemic, initially on impulse, led to a non- linear development of the Russian segment of the media space as a system, causing largely atypical transformations (at the level of media production and media consumption), subsequently (by the time of its recession), on the contrary, intensifying media communication trends of the so-called "pre-pandemic" era.
  Keywords: media space, media market, television, Internet, advertising, coronavirus, pandemic
  DOI: 10.30547/vestnik.journ.6.2022.149177
  Alexander A. Yefanov 149

• «“On the Pastures of History” (Towards Semiotization of Historiosophical Categories in Slavophiles’ Opinion Writing)»

  This article examines early Slavophiles’ opinion writing. The author draws on the assumption of polycentricity of Slavophiles’ historiosophical works and inevitable polyphony of texts. An analysis of Slavophiles’ first writings (A.S. Khomyakov’s article “About the Old and the New” and I.V. Kireevsky’s answer) proves that their ideas of Ancient Rus were contradictory and inconsistent. This can be accounted for by the contradiction between their wholehearted attachment to old ways and recognition of fundamental drawbacks of Old Russian life. However, this explanation inevitably leads to the conclusion about idealization of the ancient world and utopian nature of Slavophilic opinion writing. Khomyakov himself foresaw the accusation of idealization of the past and tried to avoid it. The article shows for the first time that in his opinion writing Khomyakov used the “countermove” of historical research turning at first to modernity and then going back to Old Russian life. Later this device was used by historian L.P. Karsavin. Because of such an approach, not only is the chronology of the events broken down but also the cause-and-effect relations of these events are destroyed. The facts seem to be isolated, they create a new conceptual system and get included into a special pictorial row. Subsequently, semiotization of historiosophical categories takes place and the language of Slavophilic opinion writing is created.
  Keywords: Slavophiles’ opinion writing, “countermove”, polycentrism, semiotization
  DOI: 10.30547/vestnik.journ.6.2022.178199
  Vladimir N. Grekov 178