AN ARCHAEOLOGICAL SITE IN THE PRISM OF USER CONTENT: A STUDY OF THE REQUESTS OF AUTHORS AND THE AUDIENCE

In this study, using the example of a specific historical monument Arkaim (the Late Bronze Age of the Eurasian Steppes), located in the Chelyabinsk region, the role of user content in the formation of the media image of the archaeological phenomenon is considered. The field of “public archaeology” in the context of the Russian media space and significant problems of representation of this field of sciences are described. The main task of the work is to identify the specific features of user-generated content about the archaeological phenomenon and analyze the general characteristics of the authors of such records, their impact on the publications being created. For this purpose, the data of a sociological survey conducted during five expeditions to Arkaim in 2023 with the support of the Russian National Science Foundation and the Chelyabinsk Region, in which 443 respondents participated, are structured and described in detail. Then, using the content analysis method, 95 user publications posted on the official account of the Arkaim Historical and Archaeological Museum-Reserve for 2023 were considered. First of all, these materials are considered from the standpoint of their form (type of content) and content (as reported in the posts). In addition, the community metric is provided, which allows you to capture the interests of a mass audience, and also describes popular user posts that were included in the sample. The work carried out allows us to solve a number of research tasks: 1) description of the portrait of a user who is inclined to post publications about an archaeological monument in the mass media; 2) fixation of the relationship between the characteristics of the authors of the content and the materials they post; 3) a conclusion is made about the high popularity of user content among a mass audience; 4) user content about an archaeological monument is characterized from the standpoint of format and content.