Communication in Third Spaces as a Factor of Agenda Building

"Third spaces" are considered as online public places where ordinary citizens communicate on everyday topics, thus being an actor of agenda-building without any political intermediaries - leaders, parties, or social movements. To identify the most significant issues of informal political talk in everyday online spaces, we conducted a quantitative content analysis of posts published in Vk.com communities "Overheard" in 15 Russian cities over the last two years. The results of this study indicate that most conversations are non-political; however, third spaces shape social norms and rules of behavior, including those during the COVID-19 pandemic.

I. Introduction

In recent years many researchers have been describing political communications as a post-truth era [7], [15]. Apart from active discussions about many examples of fake news, post-factual politics has triggered research of such phenomena as echo chambers [3], filter bubbles [14], epistemic bubbles [12], fringe communities [19], safe spaces [4], and others [9].