Hashtag As A Tool To Integrate Offline And Online Reality

Hashtags in political communication

The hashtag's colossal potential was first noted by former Google employee and Uber developer Chris Messina. In October 2007, there was a severe fire in California, the help of which was organized using the #SanDiegoFire tag posted by users on Twitter. This became the starting point for people in different cities and countries to start reacting to events happening in the world through tags in social networks.

Social networks are a very convenient platform for disseminating political information, and hashtags in them act as a unifying symbol, a way of spreading a particular ideology and influencing human consciousness and behaviour, their analogues are slogans or posters at demonstrations. According to experts from the Berkman Center at Harvard University, the importance of cyberspace in social and political life is so great that it should be considered as a rapidly growing element of offline socio-political systems.

One of the most relevant examples of broadcasting political ideology to the masses is the hashtag #stayathome (Instagram - 1.4 million publications). On March 25, 2020, President Vladimir delivered a speech about measures to resist the coronavirus and declared the days from March 28 to April 5 non-working, explaining this by the need to reduce the spread of the coronavirus. Vladimir Putin urged everyone to show responsibility and stay at home. These messages were marked with the corresponding hashtag. At first, in Russian networks, users joked about the wholesale purchase of buckwheat and toilet paper, then users began to publish posts with stories about what they do during the period of self-isolation, why it is important to contact people as little as possible, give advice on how not to get bored in quarantine, they show how they arranged workplaces at home, share life-stories and memes.

Soon, hashtags - variations on the theme of the pandemic, urging not to leave the house, became symbols of the main pages of social networks and icons of Russian federal channels. For example, the hashtag #luchshedoma (it’s better to be at home) (here and after all examples in Cyrillic are transliterated to English alphabet, in brackets we give the translation of hashtags) became the symbol for Vkontakte, # sidimdoma (we stay at home) for the NTV and MATCH channels, and Instagram even launched a special sticker for stories.

The directive hashtag, designed to regulate mass behaviour by the authorities, has become so widespread that it has gone far beyond the Internet communities. Thus, on the walls of the city and municipal buildings, posters with a series of pictures of the Stopcoronavirus state project, instructions for survival and precautionary measures, as well as memos in case of illness, lists of important phone numbers and links appeared; all - with hashtags of the relevant subject, for example, this inscription on one of the posters: "Avoid crowded places. #etospasaetzhizni (it saves lives). They instantly appeared on the network, among them - a vast number of doctors’ photos reposts from the global flash mob with the hashtag #ostavaisyadomaradinas (stay at home for us). T-shirts with prints with hashtags on the topic of pandemic and self-isolation have even appeared on sale (Figure 01 shows a model from the website of the Lamoda online store). Thus, the slogan with the grid icon that rallied people online started to mobilize their offline behaviour.

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Hashtags in journalism

In print journalism, in particular, in glossy magazines, hashtags have appeared due to their ability to update the trend of goods and services. So, the widespread use of a hashtag in magazines is the advertising of various products, an announcement of the launch of a project that needs to be promoted. For example, on the spine of the Cosmopolitan magazine issues for 2019, we find the hashtag #silavzhenschine (the power is in a woman), associated with the annual award of the same name. Here the hashtag performs an integrative function, uniting girls and women, whose achievements change the country for the better in different directions, and is also a tool for promoting the publication. The July-August 2020 issue of the Russian-language edition of the "Marie Claire" magazine is dedicated to the #Myprotivnasiliya (we are against of violence) project in support of victims suffering from violence and not protected by the law. On the pages of the magazine, well-known personalities such as State Duma deputy Oksana Pushkina, actress Regina Todorenko, journalist Evelina Khromchenko stand on the side of the victims of abuse and urge them to vote for the adoption of a law against domestic violence. The hashtag, which served as a response to the existing problem in society and expressed a negative assessment, simultaneously serves as an element uniting the project participants, and a call to take any action about gender discrimination.

The above examples show that hashtags in the mass media (as well as in the political sphere) are a factor influencing human behaviour both in real life and in virtual life. the hashtag has become a new form of self-expression: the invention of an original and popular hashtag is a matter of special pride for users (Shchurina, 2016). Every person who wants to participate in the organized competition or support any action, by all means, publishes posts on social networks, marking them with the appropriate hashtag. Interestingly, the content of social communities displayed when searching for these tags does not always have anything to do with competitions or promotions launched by magazines. For example, on Instagram, a search query for the tag #silavzhenschine (1.9 thousand publ.) Finds photographs of women (often with their families, children), asserting their feminine power, as well as jewellery (for example, from the jewellery boutique @ goldenorchidofficial). Obviously, in the latter case, the hashtag # silavzhenschine is used as a technique to attract the attention of potential buyers. According to scientists, in such a semantic multi directionality, the specificity of hashtags is manifested, creating a certain "mental palette", the dominant colour of which will be determined based on the verbal sign, since the language, in this case, will act as a model for understanding the world (Lebedeva & Astakhova, 2019).

Our observations made it possible to identify cases of journalists using the lattice sign as a fascinating technique that contributes to the attractiveness of broadcast information. For example, the articles in the Russian edition of the magazine "Marie Claire" (ed. February 2019, Chief Editor Anna Burashova) represents the headings as a combination of a hashtag sign with a word form, phrase or sentence. The words are separated from each other by a space (which is not typical for writing hashtags on the network): #ne skromno (not shy), #bol’she raznykh (more different), #pozvolitel’naya roskosh (affordable luxury), #bez kompromissa (no compromise), #call me by my name.

A magazine that advertises products of the “Podruzhka” chain of cosmetics stores in Russia uses the design of headings with hashtags, where the hashtag is in front of each name of the subheading, for example, moda#detali, interview#zvezda, ukhod#novinki, ukhod #mneniye, volosy# trends, and many of them are hybrid Russian-English and English-Russian collocations (moda#lookbook, makeup#novinki, makeup#gid, beauty#ingredient, etc.), or English-language names (beauty#woweffect, digest#summer, nails#hype). In the examples, hashtags do not carry any utilitarian meaning; most likely, their use is dictated by the desire of editors to design magazine pages creatively and attract the attention of readers.

Hashtags in advertisements

This year, a commercial for Danone curd appeared on Russian television screens, in which the hashtag #mamayapoyel (mom, I have eaten) appears, referring to the popular questions of caring mothers about whether their child has eaten (a frame from the video is shown in Figure 02 ). The video appeared on the occasion of the launch of a line of dairy products, on the packaging of which, in addition to the hashtag # mamayapoyel, you can see the hashtags #mamayablogger (mom, I am a blogger), #mamayaostauysdoma (mom, I will stay at home), #mamayauzhebolshoi (mom, I am not a kid). Copywriters used precedent texts often used by children in everyday communication with their mother (as the hashtag #mamayaostauysdoma), it seems to have appeared during the period of self-isolation) as a marketing ploy to increase brand awareness and ensure marketability products, and the hash sign as a reference to a popular Internet meme and its variations ("Mom, I have eaten and I am dressed warm," etc.). Simultaneously with the launch of the line of yoghurts, Danone announced the contest #mamayapoyel i hochunamore (https://mamiapoel.ru/winners) (mom, I have eaten and I want to travel to the sea). To participate, it was necessary to register promo codes from product packages on the company's website, as well as to take part in a challenge: it was necessary to make a photo with a spoon and a funny expression on one’s face and post it on Instagram, marking the Danone company account @mam_ia_poel and the hashtag #mamayapoel.

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The appearance of hashtags on the packaging of retail products is an expected trend. The computerization of society has led to an increase in the demand for the use of Internet symbols in everyday life, and they appear more and more often on various objects of the surrounding reality: advertising banners, in advertisements, on the signs of various institutions, clothes, cosmetic products and accessories. Such a variety of localization of the hash symbol allows us to speak of it as an element of the modern linguistic landscape.

Hashtags in the language landscape

A linguistic landscape refers to the use of a language in written text form in a particular territory and, thus, giving it visibility in public life (Gorter, 2006, p. 2). Administrative buildings (Landry & Bourhis, 1997, p. 25), as well as spontaneous inscriptions, for example, graffiti, personal advertisements, texts on clothing and souvenirs.

As we have already noted, the hash symbol is one of the most popular ways of naming in ergonomics. So, in Russia, there are restaurants with the names #sibirsibir, #faрш, loft #ПРОСТРАНСТВО, coffee shops # coffee-coffee, # waffle, ophthalmological clinic # vision2100. In Nizhny Novgorod, one of the cafes is called “Hashtag”.

In our opinion, the use of hashtags as a style-forming element in the design of cosmetic products, clothing and jewellery is of a particular interest. So, figure 03 shows a model of women's earrings from the Russian brand "SOKOLOV". As conceived by the designers, the use of the engraved hashtag #pushkin should give the product the most significant originality and modern look.

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All of the above allows us to speak of hashtags as symbols with cultural relevance. They can connect the intellectual and emotional levels before launching the three bases of social media: action, reaction, change (Solis, 2011).