The thematic paradigm of local knowledge content of the Ternopil region district press of the early 21st century

Abstract

The relevance of the research is determined by the fact that the issue of studying local texts and modeling regional-historical problems in media discourse is becoming increasingly important in journalism today. The article aims to analyze the thematic specificity of the local narrative of the district periodical of the Ternopil region at the beginning of the 21st century. The subject of the study is the thematic features of the local content of district newspapers and their narrative specificity. The research uses a complex-analytical approach, which combines systematic-chronological, historical-descriptive, genre, analytical, problem-thematic, and bibliographic methods. The chronological limits of monitoring are from January 2000 to December 2015. As a result of the research, a holistic view of the main trends of local processes in the narrative reception of district printed periodicals of the Ternopil Region at the beginning of the 21st century was formed, a comprehensive analysis of its problem-thematic direction, features of local history content in the context of the functioning of regional publications of Ukraine was carried out. The local newspaper narratives were systemized into geographic, economic, historical, artistic, and ethnographic problem-thematic groups. We have found out that historic themes are the most popular among local narratives (27.4 %), while others showcase the following results: geographical group (24.4 %), economic group (17.8 %), artistic group (16 %), and ethnographic group (14.5 %). Local narratives of natural and geographical topics reveal the potential of local objects. Publications on economic topics, highlighting the achievements of industries, show readers positive examples of successful compatriots. Historical topics include materials about princely times, the Liberation War, the Sich riflemen and the West Ukrainian People’s Republic, the Holodomor, World War II, in particular the activities of the OUN and the UPA, as well as political repression and emigration. Artistic publications reflect creative processes in the region, and ethnographic publications are represented by descriptions of the folk material and culture of the region. The content core of the geographical group is the territorial description of the area; economic themes in the narrative form reflect the problems of the modern social and economic life of the region; historical narratives uncover the past of the district; the artistic group represents literary and fine arts processes of the region; the ethnographic group promotes folk material and spiritual culture of the land.