“Sponge Cake Terror of the Opposition”. The Discourse of Fear and the Discourse about Fear on the Russian Internet

Abstract

The article is devoted to the concept of fear on the Russian Internet in mid 2010s. The author considers speech situations in which word “fear” (as well as “treat”, “danger” and the ones derived forms of these words) proves to be an instrument facilitating an interpretation of current events. On the basis of different types of statements (statements by well-known media persons, commentaries of Internet users, visual materials), the author singles out two main discourses in which the subject of “fear” is constructed in different ways.