Mass media and ethnic discourse in the North Caucasus: politicization or depoliticization?

Based on the content analysis of “non-ethnic” mass media in the federal subjects of Russia in the North Caucasus, the attempt to determine the place of ethnicity in the information field of the region and the influence of these sources on the processes of politicization/depoliticization of ethnicity is made in the paper. It was revealed that the topic “historical memory” is the leading one in ethnically marked publications. The next places in the thematic classifier are occupied by “ethnic identity” and “ethnic traditions and values”. Along with this, the discourse of modernization turned out to be in demand, which indicates that the North Caucasus is in a situation of search for an optimal balance between old and new, traditions and innovations. Only one case of the use of the concept of “nation” as a synonym for the Russian (“Rossiyan”) nation has been identified, however, references to the nation in the ethnic sense are extremely rare. It is concluded that the “non-ethnic” media of the North Caucasus keep ethnic and confessional issues within public discourse, but it is not “superfluous”, i. e. the tendency to politicize ethnicity is not typical or explicit.