The newspaper discourse dynamics of religious extremism in the Tatarstan Republic

Abstract

In article the discourse analysis of religious extremism manifestation cases in one of the Russian regions - the Tatarstan Republic is provided. These cases took plce in 2012 (attempt at assassinating leaders of Spiritual management of Tatarstan Muslims) and 2013 (arsons of orthodox churches). Tatarstan was presented as all-region tolerant in the ethno-confessional plain therefore the occurred crimes were considered as resonant and unexpected. Official publications of the federal and regional level (The Russian Newspaper and Tatarstan Republic) have been analyzed. The interpretation approach based on understanding integrity of the mass media text, the analysis of narrative structure became the cornerstone of the analysis. The emphasis has been placed on identification of an ideological component of mass media material. Researche was based on ideas of the following western scientists: F. de Saussure, R. Bart, A. Berger, T. van Deyk, J. Thompson. Three research questions have been pushed: assessment of events, methods of forming images "we" - "they", strategy of maintenance / overthrow of the domination attitude in society. Research results have shown, both cases are interpreted in newspapers approximately equally as "act of terrorism", but images "we" and "they" - differ a little. In the regional edition there is a refining and specification of images in the second case. In the federal newspaper only the image "they" is concretized. Confirming situation in the republic became an important element of the regional edition discourse. The analysis has shown some dynamic changes in a discourse of two newspapers, however, the main change is connected with the authorities response efficiency to the committed crimes and finding the answer about the religious extremism manifestations reasons. The analysis of the newspaper discourse subject line allows revealing crucial elements of religious extremism discourse and its sequence. Frequency and nature of this subject illumination show its importance in official discourse, specify the directions for solving this problem.