UNIVERSITY DIGITAL IMAGE AS INTERACTIVE PHENOMENON (CASE STUDY OF REGIONAL UNIVERSITIES)

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Abstract. The present work studies the digital image of three universities in the multicultural city of Chelyabinsk, namely Chelyabinsk State University, South Ural State University and South Ural State Humanitarian Pedagogical University. Being unstated, the concept of digital image is under discussion. It leads to distinguishing a digital image from a media image and states interactivity as the key differentiating feature for the digital one. Internet-linguistics is suggested as an appropriate scientific branch to investigate the problem. The communicative and pragmatic approach supports the anthropocentric paradigm. The objective of the work is to define relevant peculiarities of the university digital images postulating a specific discourse of higher education with the blend of other discourses. The study of university digital image is based on the analysis of linguistic and visual ways of its being. To fulfil the task the research justifies the choice of creolized (polycode) texts in comparison with polymodal texts and multimedia texts. The discourse analysis allows us to describe macrostructures of creolized texts and interpret them according definite communicative purposes. Methods of descriptive statistics show us the typical parameters of creolized texts. The semiotic method leads to studying the social and cultural code of the texts. The comparative analysis provides us with universal and specific features of university digital images. The study looks at the social network “VKontakte” as the most popular in the Russian Federation among the young. “VKontakte” is the interactive platform of the second web with unlimited resources to manage the university image together with its recipients. It has been considered unimaginable for constructing any image, which is a process under control and is supposed to design an attractive image facilitating the flow-in of financial and non-financial assets and to avoid a negative image able to push off possible actors. The research has resulted in the solution of university positioning on the communicative level, without material expenses and conditioned by the region specifics. The scientific novelty is based on the interdisciplinary approach and the digital character of information presentation. Clarifying the requirements for creolized texts, the author facilitates the continuous managing of interactive university digital image.

Keywords: digital image, university, creolized text

Svetlana Yu. Dvinina

Chelyabinsk State University Chelyabinsk, Russia e-mail: lana-dvinska@mail.ru ORCID iD: 0000-0001-5661-5758

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