Арсений Хитров

Тезисы доклада "Восприятие сообществом любителей телесериалов сообщества работников полиции"

12:30

This research is part on a larger study which addresses representations and perceptions of the police in post-Soviet popular culture. This paper focuses on perceptions of the police in Russia as reflected in online commentaries by Russian viewers discussing the popular television series Glukhar’. The choice of TV show is based on its popularity (it is ranked the most popular TV show in Russia in 2008-2011) and the choice of discussion forums is based on the number of users which contribute to them. Methods employed are discourse analysis and grounded theory approaches. Discourse analysis allows me to gauge how members of Russian society reconcile their understanding of social reality with their perceptions of the show. By looking at how authors of online commentaries about the show compare Glukhar’ to their “reality”, I build up generalizable analysis through grounded theory approaches to reveal the public’s understanding of and expectations for the role the police play in Russia on a day-to-day level. I reveal that the public understands the role of the police through the police’s law-transgression and corruption; normative judgments of these illegal police vary within Russian society. The findings of this study merit further reflection on issues of effects of popular television tropes on public perceptions of social institutions and organisations and on other sources of police images which prevail in Russian popular culture today.

Keywords: police and society; police representations; TV series; forum analysis; post-Soviet popular culture; television and society; internet and society.

Литература

Loader, Ian. “Policing and the Social: Questions of Symbolic Power.” The British Journal of Sociology 48.1 (1997): 1-18.

Reiner, Robert. “Policing and the Media.” Handbook of Policing. 2 edition. Cullompton, Devon, UK ; Portland, Or: Willan, 2008. 313–335.