Decomposition of a Media Event Through the Definition of Information Waves

An unexpected event affects the media space of social networks and through the impacts on social processes in society. These phenomena need to be recorded, investigated, and interpreted. However, existing approaches to the collection and analysis of textual data place social outcomes beyond the research framework. This article proposes an integrated approach to the consideration of media space as a set of media events. To understand the nature of a media event, it is necessary to decompose it to the level of information waves. These concepts (media event and information waves) allow us to build a meaningful methodology and draw conclusions about the nature of the publication flows following the event. The explosion in Magnitogorsk, which occurred on December 31, 2018, and had a comprehensive public response, was analyzed as an example of a media event. The article shows the possibility of combining sociological methodology as a meaningful analytical framework and mathematical and linguistic procedures to identify text clusters.