USER-GENERATED CONTENT IN RUSSIAN ONLINE MEDIA TEXTS ABOUT TRAUMATIC EVENTS

In this article, the role of citizen journalism (UGC) in the coverage of traumatic events by Russian online media is examined. Content analysis of 855 texts about the most stressful events of 2018-2020 on three online media platforms (Lenta.ru, IZ.ru, KP.ru) was carried out. The obtained data were subjected to probabilistic statistical processing using the IBM Statistics SPSS software package. Calculations showed that UGC materials posted in the media are generally less traumatic and less focused on the activities of official agencies (more open to other sources) than journalistic texts. It also turned out that as a result of integration with users' materials, the journalistic text changes its qualities, becomes less official and more personal, and represents a wider coverage of opinions and information sources. These qualities of the journalistic text significantly correlate with audience activity on the websites of the platforms under consideration in the form of reposts, comments and views. The authors of the article conclude that citizen journalism influences the development of modern mass media.