Features of ethnic identity of Tatar virtual communities in the 'Vkontakte' social network

This article is devoted to the study of virtual Tatar communities in the VKontakte social network typologized according to basic consolidating social and ethnic markers. The authors studied the three largest Tatar communities: “Iң shəp Tatarcha җyrlar” [The Coolest Tatar Songs], “Kyzyk-myzyk (Tatarcha yumor)” [Interesting Indeed (Тatar Humor)], and “Tatary i tatarochki” [Тatar males and females] using methods of statistical and content analysis. To investigate the various audiences of the communities and to identify the most popular publications, we used the following applications: https://vk.com/compare_ groups, http://allsocial.ru/communities, http://popsters.ru. The categories of content analysis were: culture, news, religion, politics, history, economics, sports, humor, self-stereotypes, marriage and dating. As a result of our research, the main audiences of the communities, the thematic and linguistic content of their publications, and the language behavior of users were revealed. The basic functions of the investigated communities were likewise detected. The study revealed the features of Tatar ethnic identity in these social networks (community members’ ideas about their identity, and how they present it in virtual and real life).