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СТРАТЕГИИ ЛЕГИТИМАЦИИ И ПОДДЕРЖАНИЯ ИМИДЖА В ДИСКУРСЕ РОССИЙСКИХ ГУБЕРНАТОРОВ ВО ВРЕМЯ ПАНДЕМИИ COVID-19
The timeliness of the present study is explained, first, by the new challenges the authorities face during the COVID-19 pandemic, and by the growing popularity of social networks as a platform for political communi-cation. The purpose of the presented research is to study the legitimation strategies and the strategies for maintaining the image in the blogs of regional leaders during the COVID-19 pandemic. The methodologicalbasis of the study constitutes the classification of strategies and tactics of speech behavior by O.N. Parshina (2005), as well as the classification of legitimation strategies by T. Van Leeuwen (2008). Along with qualita-tive content analysis, the authors employed correlation analysis of data. The results of the study reveal that image maintenance strategies are an integral part of the discourse of legitimation. The highest correlation was found between the strategy of forming the emotional state of the addressee (the strategy of maintaining the image) and the strategies of moral assessment and appeal to authority (the strategy of legitimation). In addition, there were no statistically significant deviations in the use of strategies and tactics in the discourse of the governors participating in the study, which probably allows us to speak of a certai n emerging trend in Russian political discourse amid the pandemic.