Political Actor or Ritualised Other? Mapping Ethnic Attitudes in the Russian Blogosphere of 2010

In today’s Russia, grassroots political activity and its radicalization have both risen substantially (Bodrunova&Litvinenko 2013). Urban economics- and culture-based clashes with Caucasian-origin resettlers and emigrants from ex-Soviet states, including Moscow of 2010–2013, have raised new research agendas on perception of in-border ethnicities in Russia, while 20th-century legacy including World War II and Cold War is believed to shape attitudes to ethnicities like Americans or Germans. The project aims at mapping current ethnic attitudes in the Russian-language Livejournal community selected for its ‘platform for Runet elite’ image (Gorny 2004). Two datasets (posts of top 2000 bloggers and those rated 2001 to 150000) are contrasted. To dig the context of ethnic-oriented discussions, topic modeling based on innovative ISLDA algorithm is used (Bodrunova et al. 2013). To interpret the ethnic-oriented topics, ‘politicized ethnicities’ vs. ‘ritualized ethnicities’ semi-automated frame analysis and manual discourse analysis are deployed (Krejci&Velimsky 1981); factors influencing ‘politicization/ritualization’ are suggested.