THE ROLE OF THE 2018 FIFA WORLD CUP IN FORMING RUSSIA'S IMAGE
This paper is devoted to the study of the role international sporting events in forming image of state. The goal of research is to study the role of the FIFA World Cup in forming Russia's image. The front-end content analysis is used, which is focused on drawing up the most detailed idea of the information flow over a certain period in order to identify meaningful dynamics and is of an applied nature. The physical unit of content analysis was the article number (release date), and the text publication was the unit of analysis. Texts for processing were searched in English using a Google search for the period from May 1, 2018 to August 1, 2018. The articles should simultaneously contain the words “Russia” and “World cup”. In a generalized form, the search query looked like this: site: [publication site] Russia and World cup. The sample population includes the most popular Google search queries. Articles containing only a summary of sports indicators were excluded from the texts found, since the research objectives were satisfied with articles affecting the social, political and economic aspects of the 2018 World Cup. The information priorities of different foreign media are different. For the American and British media, it is important, in particular, to respect human rights in Russia, and for the Chinese media, the opportunity to profit from the supply of our own products. However, after the end of the 2018 FIFA World Cup, negative rhetoric gave way to positive. The results of the study indicate the positive role of the 2018 World Cup in shaping the image of the Russian state.