WILL BLOGERS REPLACE JOURNALISTS? INSTITUTIONAL AND NON-INSTITUTIONAL ACTORS AT THE INTERSECTION OF MEDIA AND NETWORK SPACES

In the paper, we consider the relationship between institutionalizedand non-institutionalized actors of media space within the framework  of communicative capitalism (J. Dean). We develop this  concept in the context of attention economy and new ways of digital  capitalization. Internet user's attention is attracted, enclosed in particular Web segments, and converted into money by these  segments’ owners and holders. So, new digital subjects  with  significant recourses and capabilities occur. Among them: traffic  monopolists, network elites, communicative capitalists. The  convergence of media- and networked spaces of social system  complicates relation configurations between subjects in both spaces.  Media relations are digitalized. Networked relations are mediated. On the area of these spaces’ intersection, different actors operate. They  are digital subjects, Internet users, media and journalists, media  audiences. Their communicative strategies and practices transform  and intertwine each other. In the paper, we highlight two situations. The first situation: when a journalist creates her or his  own network brand and tries to attract a new audience in her or his  Web segment. She or he faces with distrust and the desire of  Internet users to overturn the established symbolic hierarchies. The  second situation: when a digital actor tries to get rents from the  media space. She or he competes for the media audience and backs  up her or his independent status. Both situations give rise to a  number of opportunities and number of threats. Both digital actors  and journalists are influenced with algorithm biasing and post-truth  dissemination. The latter is aggravated with political actors’  participating and media and political subsystems converging.