The dynamics of public discourse during the coronavirus pandemic: a request for responsibility

ABSTRACT

The coronavirus epidemic caused not only an explosion of attention in Russian public communication, but the media discourse content also transformed radically during the first months of the 2020 epidemic: from distrust and panic to responsible balanced content. An analysis of this phenomenon allows for a deeper understanding of the evolution of the value-normative characteristics of modern society broadcast in the media. There is a trend of a transition from ill-conceived propaganda of rights to a balance of rights and responsibilities as well as an increase of attention in public discourse to free speech. In addition, there is a trend towards a transition from the dominance of post-truth to manifestations of personal freedom as responsibility. The dynamics of the coronavirus discourse not only fit into this general civilizational trend, but they provided additional impulses for the trend’s further development. Such a shift in emphasis makes it useful to appeal to the concept of parrhesia – a free and responsible ‘taking the floor’ (‘word-taking’).

KEYWORDS:

• Coronavirus
• discourse
• media
• pandemic
• parrhesia
• responsibility
• social networks

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Notes on contributor

Grigorii L. Tulchinskii holds a Doctor of Philosophy in Accounting from St. Petersburg State University, and is Professor in Accounting at the Department of Problems of Interdisciplinary Synthesis in the Field of Social Sciences and Humanities of St. Petersburg State University, Russia, and is Professor in Accoutning at Department of Public Administration of National Research University Higher School of Economics in St. Petersburg, Russia. His current research interests include social communications, philosophy of culture and personality, social engineering. Honored Scientist of Russia.

Additional information

Funding

The study was funded by a grant from the Russian Science Foundation No. 18-18-00442 ‘Mechanisms of the sense formation and textualization in narrative and performative discourses and practices’.