Internet visualization of the ‘Russia' stereotypes

This article discusses the ways of ‘Russia' stereotypes visualization in the modern Internet. It provides the definitions for the concepts of visualization, web space, stereotype, determines the relationships of such research units as concept, frame, discourse, stereotype. The technical patterns for stereotypes imaging are as follows: a work of fine art, a drawing, a cartoon, a collage, colors, and photo. Photography is the most common way of visualizing the Internet stereotypes. Among visualized stereotypes we meet cultural and (geo)political. In the discourse researched we met such stereotypes as: the two-headed eagle (great power), tricolor (white, blue, red), broken road (ruin), a cap with ear-flaps, the Kremlin, the Russian Orthodox Church, the wealth of natural resources. Some stereotypical knowledge of non-visual nature (inconsistency, unpredictability, Russian character) is expressed by indexical or rhetorical signs. Visualization is a verification of the ideological meanings expressed in language, in the text, in the discourse. Visualized stereotypes have a significant ideological component. Complex abstract meanings become more vivid. Visualization of ideological meanings is a kind of verification of these complicated senses. In general, a visualized stereotype is the perfect form of its representation. Stereotype is a reduced, a schematic image. Verbally reduction is expressed in the fact that the stereotype is committed to a «simple» representation by means of the same set of tokens, a simple syntax. As far as visual images possess uniqueness, simplicity and quickness of perception, a stereotype seeks for such a method of expression. In the paper it is also concluded that discourse can be visualized and thus it also exhibits such properties as connectivity, recurrence and continuity. It should also be noted that there are examples of simultaneous updating of different stereotypes in the same piece of text. In our opinion, this is due to the fact that discourse is non-discrete. The stereotypes in the discourse are a kind of anchor points, providing its recurrence. Thus, the discourse can have a visual representation. Visualized images of Russian discourse argue that visualized discourse and verbal discourse are one and the same discourse, the discourse of Russia and it has the properties of coherence, continuity and repeatability. It should be also paid attention to the specificity of online communication. Internet space, being one of the spaces of media communication, on the one hand, convert images into stereotypes, on the other hand, use them in order to meet the expectations of the mass audience.