Russian-Language Press in Kazakhstan in the Context of Culture Mediatization

The article discusses the issues of culture mediatization in Kazakhstan. Using the Russian-language press in Kazakhstan for a case study, the authors aim to show how culture mediatization facilitated the emergence of an integrated cultural sub-discourse in which mass culture, while dominant, does not cast off the traditional and elitist culture, but finds common grounds. The empirical basis for the article included media texts from the Russian-language press of Kazakhstan. The analysis looked into the concepts embedded in the headings of media texts on culture-related topics published in the Russian-language press (the newspapers Kazakhstanskaya Pravda, Express K, Litera, Kursiv, Komsomolskaya Pravda. Kazakhstan, and others) in 2018-2020. Using a continuous sampling method, a database was created that included examples of the use of precedent phenomena (in particular, precedent onyms), idioms and national culture-coded metaphors in media texts, which the authors consider to be a verbal representation of modern cultural codes. The study uses the stylistic method of contextual analysis and the method of interpretive analysis to translate cultural codes from media texts, taking into account extralinguistic factors. As a result of the study, two groups of cultural precedent phenomena were identified in the Russian-language media discourse. The first group comprises media text headings that allude to the precedents of world classical culture and have strong ties with the world cultural process. The other group demonstrates further natural interference between two cultures, Russian and Kazakh, due to the common Soviet past. The study assessed the usage frequency of Russian idioms, codes and symbols from Russian fairy tales in the Russian-language press in Kazakhstan. The mediatization of culture in Kazakhstan is facilitated by new culture-specific concepts intended to enhance the society's awareness of its belonging primarily to the Kazakh national culture, while, at the same time, helping to strengthen the multicultural unity of the society. The study of precedent cultural phenomena, culture-specific concepts and idioms incidental to the Russian-language press confirms the idea that culture mediatization has resulted in the formation of a special communicative space in media culture in which previously known culture types (traditional, elite and mass) are interwoven, the codes of Russian and Kazakh national cultures are intertwined, and the value system recognizes the estimable status of Kazakhstan's media culture as a new-era phenomenon.

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