COVID-19 and Ukrainian digital political discourse transformation in 2020.
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.31558/2519-2949.2020.2.14Keywords:
digital political discourse, Ukraine, COVID-19, political text, «Ukrayins’ka pravda»Abstract
A political discourse digitalization potentially may lead to decreasing a disproportion in official andnon-official actors representation in a crisis times, which was observed in mass-media period of the discourse development. To check this hypothesis, the Ukrainian digital political discourse transformation was observed between January-Mau 2020. These data was compared with 2019 data. A corpus of texts was formed form a prominent Ukrainian social and political site «Ukrayins’ka pravda» (more than 10 thousand items). The texts were processed with the help of Python programs. Four indicators were measured: diversification, uniqueness, balance and domestic focus.
The diversification indicator decreased in comparison with 2019 (1,2). In March-April 2020 the indicator had the lowest rate (0,5-0,6). And vice versa, the uniqueness indicator increased and was stable in 2020 – 25-27%. In the quarantine period this characteristic coincided with the Ukrainian digital political discourse characteristics during so called «dead season» (holidays, vacations) in 2019. This shows a lower intensity of political life. Additionally, in March-May lower heterogeneity in a list of the most popular political actors is observed (officials mainly). However, there is a smaller gap between the first (Zelensky) and the second position (Klychko) in the list. And the greatest attention towards internal affairs is considered (domestic focus is higher, than 2019 average).
As a result, it may be claimed, that the Ukrainian digital political discourse has been transforming, due to COVID-19 pandemic. The interrelations between the political actors was minimized, which may testify low engagement of non-official actors or their invisibility in the discourse.
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