Communicative transformation of social media

Abstract

The relevance of the study of the changes in communication practices on the Internet is associated with the fact that the online environment influences not only the sphere of social activity, but it is also a significant part of an individual's personal experience. This makes the Internet an important marker of many anthropological transformations. Accordingly, the traditional forms of communication are also changed. In this context, the aim of the research is to analyze the transformation of textual and visual forms of communication in social media, which are an integral part of the online environment. The authors examined the basic stages of the Internet transformation by providing the description of the phenomenon of social networking and revealing its specific properties. The analysis of communicative practices in social media as the most popular online communication platform revealed that the online environment (just as the traditional one) has also been exposed to the socalled «iconic turn» that put the communicative focus on the visual component. At the same time, social media are exposed to a significant transformation in terms of the text. It is not the traditional text anymore, but rather a synthesis of speech and writing, thus saving the communicator time. «Netvisms» (a new term referring to neologisms on the Net) actively penetrate into everyday speech that may indicate a certain degree of degradation of the language structure, particularly if they are considered outside the spectacle society.

Keywords

• social media
• visual turn
• text
• electronic discourse
• communicative transformation