Abstract
The article explores how emotionality is manifested in the news texts covering politically sensitive topics, using as the case study coverage of the 75th anniversary of WWII Victory in news programmes of the Russian TV Channel One, Russia TV and RT. Proceeding from the key theoretical assumption of medialinguistics defining media texts as an integral unity of verbal and media components, the author singles out and analyzes markers of emotionality at both - language and media levels, paying special attention to lexis and the way it is supplemented by illustrations and video footing. The analysis of the news flow is based on the information model, which allows to structure the process of news formation according to the following stages - selection of events for news coverage, interpretation of facts, shaping images, forming stereotypes and cultural-ideological context. The goal of the study was to identify markers of emotionality and analyze how emotionality affects the interpretation and the perception of facts, paying special attention to realization of the category of broadcasting style defined as the tone of voice, or tonality news media use when addressing their audience. Conceiving emotionality as both explicitly manifested and implicitly present quality, the study singles out its three types as represented in the analyzed media texts - 1) specific pretentious style, used by newsreaders and commentators to stress the dignity and solemnity of the event; 2) deliberate affectation disguised as emotionality on the part of news anchors while presenting topically sensitive news items; 3) emotionality as spontaneous display of sincere emotions observed in interviews, dispatches of correspondents and commentaries of the participants of the events. The results of the study could serve as a basis for further analysis of emotionality markers in different types of media discourse, including news, commentary and debate on politically sensitive issues in traditional media and social networks.
Highlights
News have traditionally been regarded as media texts that should demonstrate objectivity and balanced representation of events, this requirement being of particular importance in the coverage of politically sensitive issues (Allan 2006, 2010, Bell 1991, Davis 2008, de Botton 2014)
The aim of the present paper is to identify markers of emotionality in coverage of politically sensitive topics and find out and how emotionality affects the interpretation and the perception of facts, giving special attention to realization of the category of broadcasting style defined as the tone of voice, or tonality news media use when addressing their audience
The research was conducted within the frameworks of medialinguistics – a rapidly developing branch of linguistics focusing on all aspects of language functioning in the media
Summary
News have traditionally been regarded as media texts that should demonstrate objectivity and balanced representation of events, this requirement being of particular importance in the coverage of politically sensitive issues (Allan 2006, 2010, Bell 1991, Davis 2008, de Botton 2014). For the past decade, with the advancement of fake news and further polarization of perspectives on world events in the Russian and the Western media, international scholars have observed growing emotionalisation of news discourse on the whole (Ahmed 2014, Bleiker & Hutchison 2008, Clément & Sangar 2018, Crawford 2000, Lünenborg & Maier 2018, Chatterje-Doody & Rhys Crilley 2019) This trend has been reflected by representatives of different research schools and approaches, who have analyzed news texts from several perspectives – theory of journalism, media studies, linguistics, discourse analysis, political communication and media linguistics (Allan 2010, van Dijk 1998, Crystal 2006, Fairclough 1995, Gillespie & Toynbee 2006, Dobrosklonskaya 2000, 2008, 2014, Matheson 2005, Thurlow & Mroczek). The material used is represented by the Russian media news texts about 75th anniversary of the Victory in WWII for the period from March till June 2020
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