Dynamics of magazine’s travel-content and the Internet portal “Vokrug Sveta” at the beginning of COVID-19 pandemic

Abstract

The relevance of research is related to the study of Russian travel journalism in the context of the COVID-19 pandemic. The purpose of work is to find out how the travel content of the “Vokrug Sveta” magazine and its official website has changed, as well as to identify key authorial tasks in the travel texts of the magazine for 2020. Based on the results of a content analysis of 41 materials of major genre forms (travel essays, digest, narrative history) in the “Travel” section both in the printed version and on the website, we justify that the magazine began to pay more attention to Russia – in quantitative terms, there are 2 times more materials on domestic tourism compared to the second half of 2019 than about the world. We demonstrate that in terms of content, this content has evolved from introductory materials in the format of thematic collections to full-fledged travel guides about Russian cities and areas. We conclude that the “Vokrug Sveta” editors at the beginning of the COVID-19 pandemic helped tourists in a changed world find new ways to travel and be optimistic about everything that happened at that time. In addition, we find that the publication sought to find ways to provide the audience with a quick and convenient format for obtaining information about tourist places, gave practical recommendations to travelers.