The Comparative Analysis of Media Strategies of Russian Sex Bloggers'

The present research investigates a phenomenon of Russian sex blogging on Instagram. Discourse about sex in Russia has been and remains quite poor: there is still no good balanced institutionalized sexual education in schools and taboo on the discussion of sex in the media and public field. As a consequence, young people find out information about sexuality in open internet resources, including sex blogs on Instagram. So, public sex blogs could destigmatize sex discourse and become a platform for the exchange of opinions. But in potentially free digital space, authors are faced with condemnation, a crisis of expertise and the collapse of public and private spheres. So, the general purpose of this project is to reveal and classify media strategies used by Russian sex bloggers to present selves and balance between their aims and social acceptance. Discourse analysis and visual and text content analysis helps to describe and classify content in sex blogs. Then, interviews with some authors are intended to clarify connections between their internet presentations and aims. The results anticipated are intended to highlight differences in blogging strategies caused by technical, social and personal norms. This study seems to be significant for both the academic and public fields. Thus, the present project offers theoretical and empirical moves for further investigations in Media Studies. Furthermore, it may help to determine the place of the phenomenon of sex blogs in the modern Russian social and political environment.