Selling preparation, selling self: Platformization, professional identity, and regulatory adaptation in Russian artistic tutoring on Telegram

The platformization of education is reshaping professional identities and pedagogical practice in high-stakes, performance-based university entrance preparation. This article explores how private tutors serving Russia’s performing arts sector strategically construct hybrid roles as educators, entrepreneurs, and influencers, using Telegram as their primary infrastructure amid shifting regulatory and technological environments. Using qualitative reflexive thematic analysis of two million posts across 14 public Telegram channels (with audience sizes ranging from under 200 to nearly 23,000), the study reveals how tutors marshal platform affordances—including multimedia broadcasting, strategic channel-group integration, and personalized service offerings—to innovate pedagogically, perform credibility, and weather regulatory pressures. The analysis situates Telegram as an active medium shaping not only communication but also social organization, market differentiation, and boundary work between formal and informal education. The findings show tutors leveraging digital tools to institutionalize quasi-formal practices, personalize emotional and cognitive support, and survive in a volatile, policy-constrained ecosystem. By foregrounding affordance-driven analysis and the entrepreneurial turn in shadow education, this article contributes to new media studies, platform research, and educational theory, ultimately revealing how digital infrastructures are central to contemporary transformations in identity, pedagogy, and power in global education.