Дискурс Пи (Mar 2021)
Discursive Features of Youth Video Blogs in the Russian Segment of YouTube
Abstract
The article studies discursive features of youth video blogs in the Russian segment of YouTube. The aim of the work is to identify and systematize the relationships between different levels of discourse: the peculiarities of functioning of the video blogs media environment, the genre system, stylistics, and motivation of media consumption. To achieve this aim, based on the secondary analysis of data obtained using web analytics services, a list of Russian YouTube channels with high indicators of virtual audience activity has been determined. The main focus of the work is on the behavior of the audience, which has received a significant share of control over procedures and discourse production in social media. Based on systemizing achievements of social and humanitarian science in the field of digital communication, the most characteristic discursive features of youth video blogging are identified: the predominance of entertainment and commercialized practices; the motivation of media consumption associated with the search for the least energy-intensive ways of psychological relaxation and information acquisition; the dominance of emotional content; loss of analytical and dialogical elements; promotion technologies based on artificial sensationalism and provocations. With the help of functional analysis, in addition to the dominant entertainment function of video blogs, the ability of the network discourse of video blogs to respond to a number of requests related to the identification of social status is revealed. A contradiction is found out between the high social status of video bloggers among modern youth and the specific features of the media environment. Some effects of network communications are noted: hype promotion, the post-truth phenomenon, the "echo chamber" effect. The systematization of various levels of vlogging discourse makes it possible to conclude that the contradiction of public concern between the high social status of popular video bloggers and the possible negative impact of their content on worldview, values, goals and behavior of young people is largely due to the nature of the media environment, which is interactive, focused on maximizing relevance and monetization. The article is addressed to specialists in the field of social and humanitarian studies dealing with issues of discourse analysis and interdisciplinary study of communicative processes in modern social media.
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