Specificity of comprehensive quasi-political discourse analysis in comments on social media

The paper discusses the possibilities of using various methods (discourse analysis, content analysis, event analysis, ethnographic methods) to study the formation and development of quasi-political discourse. The nature of modern media discourse is due to the possibility of politicizing almost any event, which is often accompanied by a scathing response of the actors of media communication. The modality of their statements tends to be negative, which testifies opposing political views and polarization of in- and out-groups. Quasi-political discourse is the response to political and near-political issues that are socially relevant, or seem to be such for the actors of media communication. Newspeak is an essential marker of quasi-political discourse, serving as a way to understand and construct political and quasi-political narratives. The analysis of newspeak enables the researcher to study broader phenomena, such as ideology, manipulation and power. The paper proposes the framework for newspeak analysis, based on the various methods; singles out features of quasi-political discourse and applies those methods to comments concerning current events that appear on social media.