Cultural Experts and Communicative Capitalism: Transformation of Communicative Practices

Abstract

This paper, attempted to answer, how, in the age of totalizing mediated communication, the role of a cultural expert (i.e. a person with knowledge and competence for interpreting the cultural phenomena encountered by a non-reflexive person in everyday life) is transformed. Terms ‘communicative capitalism’ and ‘digital labour’ were used in this study. Through analyzing the communicative behavior of three Russian cultural experts (spe-cializing in fashion, cinematography, and music) on their Instagram and Facebook pages authors identified typical linguistic and extra-linguistic practices of attracting and enclosing of Internet audience attention, multiplying of their communicative capital and monetizing it.