The use of the Yakut language in the online space of media in the northeastern regions of the Sakha Republic (Yakutia)

The subject of the study is the use of the Yakut language in the online space of regional mass media in the northeastern districts of the Republic of Sakha (Yakutia). The object of the research is the collection of news publications from eight regional online media outlets presented on the Ulus.media portal. The study examines in detail such features as the ratio of Russian-language and Yakut-language news, the distribution of languages across topics, the peculiarities of headline writing, as well as the impact of Russisms on the formation of the modern local media space. Special attention is paid to identifying the lexical and semantic fields of Yakut-language publications, determining the degree of their functional load, and analyzing the factors affecting the fragmentary use of the language in the regional media environment. The research is aimed at understanding the dynamics of the use of the Yakut language in the context of remoteness, digital inequality, and weak infrastructure in the Arctic regions. The study employs quantitative content analysis and qualitative lexical-semantic analysis of headlines and news publication texts, as well as comparative-descriptive methods that allow for revealing the degree of representation of the Yakut language and the nature of its functioning in the regional media environment. The main findings of the conducted research are the establishment of the dominant position of the Russian language (over 80% of all news publications) and the identification of predominantly fragmentary and thematically limited use of the Yakut language in the regional online media of the northeastern Republic of Sakha (Yakutia). The novelty of the research lies in the comprehensive analysis of 1,798 news materials over a three-month period, covering the media space of the republic's peripheral districts characterized by low infrastructure development, remoteness from trade and transportation centers, as well as specific media consumption features. The analysis of the text content suggests that the Yakut language in the local media environment functions as an adaptive and dynamically developing system capable of serving a significant part of the regional informational media space while maintaining its ethnocultural specificity.

Yakut language, regional media, news publications, northeastern districts of Yakutia, bilingualism, Russianisms, media space, digitalization, mediacommunication, regional media environment