Ethnopolitical Process in the North Caucasus Through the Lens of North Caucasian Online Media

Abstract

The purpose of the article is to single out the informational materials of the selection of publications in the regional online media and news websites dedicated to the problems of national and cultural and ethnic religious self-determination of the peoples of the North Caucasus, their classification and analysis. The researches of publications on these topics (including their content analysis with the identification of relevant lexical items) are a significant trend of modern Russian politological research. The analysis of the array of information on the problem of national and cultural and ethnic religious self-determination made it possible to identify the focal points presented on the media scene of the North-Caucasian Federal District and the Southern Federal District: the language discourse of national cultural self-determination; historical memory and issues of rehabilitation of victimized peoples, conflict projections of the “Circassian issue”, glorification of mythological subjects, rituals, religious practices and ethnic activists. Such a specification of the subjects, the emphasis on certain newsworthy information allows us to talk about a new round of the process of national and cultural self-determination, determined both by domestic and foreign policy issues. The result of the work can be presented in the form of the following recommendations related to information support of identified issues in the electronic environment: taking the pressing problems out of the realm of politics; prevention of politicization of the land issue, rehabilitation issue, etc.; avoiding purposeful ethnicization, ethnic glorification of problems; avoiding the understatement of problem points; involvement of respected religious and public figures as the experts on the problem to comment on the situation.