The study of the discourse of electronic media using a network approach (The discussion of Russian Federation joining the

World Trade Organization)

Prosyanyuk, Daria V., Postgraduate student in Sociology at National Research University 'Higher School of Economics', Moscow, Russian Federation, prosyanuck@gmail.com

Nowadays each political and economic decision is reflected in the information Internet - space. In this area each country has the opportunity for self-positioning and communicating with other countries. Joining of the Russian Federation the World Trade Organization is an example of such economic and political decision. This is the problem for paramount relevance for Russia's domestic and foreign policy and economy for many years now. Any economic and political decisions (especially of such scale as joining WTO) must be legitimized in the various segments of population. Accordingly, the information Internet - space - is a visualizer of economic and political decisions, taken and prepared to accept, it's a kind of "field", where the relations between countries become evident. Thus, the information Internet - space is a unique representator of intra- and inter-country relationship: there are tested methods of argumentation and legitimation of decisions taken by "the higher authority". What is more, implicit relationships and linkages between countries are explicated here with relatively more complete than in other open-sources. This scientific field is currently an active area of research in many sciences such as: sociology, sociolinguistics, applied mathematics, political science, journalism, computer science, psychology, marketing etc. The study of the international information Internet - space is now has become one of the most urgent tasks of sociology. Such researches will help in long-term planning of ideological prospects of actions and enable the formulation of empirically-based recommendations for the successful positioning of Russian Federation in information space. The present paper analyzes the media coverage of the problem of entry of Russian Federation to the World Trade Organization. The research is interdisciplinary: it combines methodological development of sociology, political science and linguistics. The research methodology includes modern approaches to the analysis of texts: network analysis, content analysis, discourse analysis, cognitive analysis, in part - map analysis. The empirical base of research is restricted by the time period January 2008 - January 2010. The samples size is: 50 foreign sources: 61 articles: 15 countries. 85 Russian sources: 163 articles. The empirical base consists of three groups of sources: 1) Official sources: - Leading countries government websites (USA, UK, France, etc.); - Official sources (eg, RIA-Novosti, Business New Europe, Berliner Zeitung, etc.). 2) Expert sources (eg Wall Street Journal, Reuters, Le Figaro, etc.). 3) Informal sources (blogs and forums - eg. Englishrussia.com, thedailyreviewer.com, etc.).

The study developed the methodology for analyzing cross-national information exchange at the micro (the "grain concepts" algorithm of structuring texts) and macro (construction and analysis of cross-country cognitive map) levels. Also, it revealed the points of view and clusters of countries on three main issues: assessment of chances of entry of Russia into the WTO, assessing the prospects of cooperation with Kazakhstan and Belarus (customs agreement), and assessment of the Russian Federations opinion about the appropriateness of the entry into the WTO, and examined the corresponding arguments. This work has a great potential scope. It's possible through this technique to capture the views of leading countries and experts on world affairs, to indicate the presence of the main intellectual centers, discussed world problems. We hope that through this cognitive map it will be possible to track a new conceptual model of political and economic events that capture the linkages between the leading intellectual centers and centers of decision-critical economic and political decisions.

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Proposed length of Paper: 5 pages.