The Constructed and the Real in Mediatization: Interpretation of the Second World War by the West and Russia

Abstract

The construction of discourse as a method of influence in the modern media space is becoming increasingly widespread. The influencing potential of discourse is revealed through modelling the evaluative interpretation of a discursive attractor event in the mass media space. This study identifies and demonstrates the features of constructing new value systems of an attractor event in media discourse to shift ideological values and rewrite historical facts from a given ideological position. The object of the study is the referent of the events of the Great Patriotic War (World War II), the anti-Russian interpretation of which is presented in the resolution of the European Parliament “On the importance of preserving historical memory for the future of Europe” and the statement of M. Morawiecki to the response statement of V. V. Putin at the informal CIS summit. Axiological analysis, interpretive analysis in line with inference, cognitive modelling, critical discourse analysis and the deconstruction method have been used as the research methods. The study demonstrates how this resolution and Morawiecki's statement construct a false interpretation of the historical facts of the Second World War to shift the addressee's values, activating linguistic-cognitive mechanisms: spin-doctoring, focusing, defocusing, framing, reframing, positioning, imagineering. As a result of the study, conclusions are drawn about the potential of discursive tools for ideological influence on the addressee.
 It has been revealed that the renomination and revaluation of catastrophic events in the past, which are the addresser’s imagination, are presented as reality. An alternative scenario of the past is constructed, which is presented as the real state of affairs, which can confuse the recipient with a reduced level of criticality when perceiving the suggested information. Consequently, it is assumed that the addresser’s manipulative influence is aimed at changing the addressee’s values. The development of discursive technologies to change the socio-political positions of the uncritically thinking addressee and the formation of anti-Russian axiological orientations of the younger generation contribute to the displacement of higher values, and the arbitrary interpretation of historical facts in the West is becoming regular. The presented cognitive models of new constructed political positions contain axiological attractors, linguo-cognitive mechanisms and discursive strategies identified in the process of analysis.