Presentation of the strategy of myth-making in the digital environment during the presidential elections-2018

The article is devoted to the study of myth-making as one of the leading communicative strategies for forming the image of a political leader. This strategy becomes especially relevant during election campaign periods. This is due to the fact that political myths as a special form of mentality are able to influence the consciousness of voters by constructing a “lived reality” arising from the candidate’s program and promises. The authors distinguish “internal (controlled) myth creation” when a politician and his team are considered as a source of myth creation, and “external (uncontrolled) myth creation” initiated by unaffiliated political actors. The object of study in the article is “internal myth-making” as a communication strategy for constructing the image of a political leader. The subject of the research is the set of concepts representing the most important myths in the pre-election communication of a political leaders and the ways of their explication in the digital environment. The empirical base of the study consists of the video materials containing political mythology of three candidates for the post of President of the Russian Federation − P. N. Grudinin, V. V. Zhirinovsky and K. A. Sobchak. These videos were posted on You Tube video hosting during the 2018 election campaign. The paper describes the specifics of the representation of the four main political myths (social ideal, enemy, identity and hero-savior) in the communication of the political leaders analyzed. On this basis, the most significant myths for the formation of their political image have been identified. Acknowledgments: The authors acknowledge Saint-Petersburg State University for the research grant 26520757.