American Media Discourse Research Articles

ВТОРАЯ МИРОВАЯ ВОЙНА, «ИСПАНКА» ИЛИ ЧЕРНОБЫЛЬ? ПАНДЕМИЯ COVID-19 В ЗЕРКАЛЕ ИСТОРИЧЕСКИХ АНАЛОГИЙ (ПО МАТЕРИАЛАМ АМЕРИКАНСКОГО И РОССИЙСКОГО МЕДИА-ДИСКУРСА)

Purpose. The article attempts to reconstruct a range of historical analogies used to describe the COVID-19 pandemic in American and Russian public discourse in March 2020. Methodology and Approach. The methodological framework is set by the tradition of collective memory research (“memory studies”). The source base is materials posted on official websites of “The New York Times”, “The Washington Post” and “The Wall-Street Journal”, as well as materials from the Russian-language media discourse selected by search queries in the “Yandex News”. Results: the analysis of the media discourse allowed the author to identify three types of appeals to the collective past: “military”, “economic and “epidemiological” analogies. It is noted that the repertoires of “military” and “epidemiological” analogies in Russian and American media discourse are almost identical. Theoretical and/or practical implications. The study allowed testing the author’s methodology for the analysis of historical analogies in the media discourse, and its results open perspectives to further study of the problem.

“Green neology” and its role in environmental education (a media discourse approach)

The article covers the problem of ecological neologisms which mostly appear in the present-day media discourse space and actively function there by making a significant impact on people’s environmental worldview. Moreover, the research also raises the problem of neologisms as an effective educational instrument for raising human ecological awareness. A comparative analysis of the most popular neologisms circulated in the Russian, British and American media discourse space is introduced in the study. Finally, it is suggested that green neology in its close correlation with media ecology provide a foundation for building and developing a new ecosystemic society with more sustainable ideology towards the future of the planet.

СПЕЦИФИКА РЕПРЕЗЕНТАЦИИ ИДЕОЛОГЕМЫ «ЗАПАДНЫЕ ЦЕННОСТИ» В АМЕРИКАНСКОМ МЕДИЙНОМ ДИСКУРСЕ (НА МАТЕРИАЛЕ АНГЛИЙСКОГО ЯЗЫКА)

The article aims to describe the specificity of the WESTERN VALUES concept representation in the American media discourse and to prove that this mental phenomenon is an ideologeme widely used by the western mass media to exercise manipulative influence. The author analyses textual realization of the ideologeme “western values” with a view to identify its cognitive specificity. In the author’s opinion, further research should be focused on analysing the discourse through the lenses of realization of ideologemes as mental concepts creating ideological space and influencing the formation of social identity.

The Image of Immigration in American Media Discourse (the Case of Internet Memes)

The immigration problem is very important in modern American media discourse. The interest to immigration is provoked by social, cultural and political transformations in American society today, among which one should mention D. Trump’s anti-immigration rhetoric, restrictions for immigrants, plans to massively deport illegal migrants. It is interesting and relevant to analyze the image of immigration in American internet memes, because the genre of internet memes suggests freedom of speech, original presentation of information and disregard of political correctness. Thus, it is internet memes that reflect the true opinion of Americans about the present-day immigration problem. The image of immigration in American internet memes unfolds in several dimensions. Firstly, the most numerous group consists of memes that mock at Trump’s anti-immigration policy, namely his promise to build a wall on the Mexican border, deport illegal migrants, stop illegal immigration. In these memes one can see comic effect based on the grotesque representation of D. Trump and his hard-hitting statements. The second group comprises memes devoted to the indigenous Indian population of North America. In these memes the word immigrant refers to all the settlers from Europe who populated North America. In addition, the authors of these memes ironically view the appeals to stop illegal immigration and point out that all the people except indigenous Indians are immigrants in fact. The third group consists of memes, in which the problem of immigration is portrayed in a humorous way. Some authors of memes laugh at the importance, which is attached to the immigration problem today, and they highlight the fact that the problem of immigration in the USA is exaggerated. One can also come across memes with non-politically correct messages, declaring the superiority of Americans over immigrants. Besides, there are memes in which different ethnic groups, immigrating to the USA, are represented in a comic way. These ethic groups are Mexicans and Asian people. To sum up, immigration problem is presented in a humorous manner in internet memes, which is motivated by the entertaining character of memes. The diversity of memes devoted to immigration reflects the pluralism of opinion in American society and the importance of this problem.

Стратегии вербализации эпистемической ответственности в массмедийном дискурсе информационного противоборства (на примере освещения украинского кризиса)

Strategies of verbalization of epistemic responsibility in the Russian and American media discourse are considered. The material of the study were the texts published in the Internet versions of the Russian and American media, which covers the Ukrainian crisis. Discursive and content analysis methods are used. The relevance of the study is due to the modern features of functioning of Russian and foreign media systems, referred to as information war. The typology of strategies of epistemic responsibility verbalization is proposed, which includes two strategies, coupled with high epistemic responsibility (a statement of fact and implicit assertion), and three strategies for avoiding epistemic responsibility (personification of information / an expert speaks / from the horse’s mouth, darkening of information source, word of mouth). The statistical analysis of the implementation of the identified strategies in the fragments of the Russian and American media discourse is carried out. A general tendency to the predominance of the strategy of “statement of fact” is shown, the next being the strategy of “personification information / an expert speaks / from the horse’s mouth.” The conclusion is made about the possible dependence of the obtained results on the affiliation of the analyzed works of the media discourse to news journalism, which operates with facts, ready-made results of knowledge, in contrast to analytical journalism, designed to interpret, explain, discuss.

Освещение геополитической проблематики в контексте темы освоения Арктики в американском медиадискурсе (на примере материалов газеты «The New York Times»)

Освещение геополитической проблематики в контексте темы освоения Арктики в американском медиадискурсе (на примере материалов газеты «The New York Times»)

Репрезентация еды в американском медиадискурсе

Репрезентация еды в американском медиадискурсе

The Lingual and Pragmatic Characteristics of Occasionalisms in the American Media Discourse

In the article, the notion of an occasionalism was studied; its place and role in the media discourse were outlined. While analyzing occasionalisms according to the theory of relevance by D. Sperber and D. Wilson, the inferential processes in the interpretation of utterances containing occasionalisms were traced. Thanks to conducted analysis, the meaning of occasional units was inferred, the pragmatic characteristics of these units were described and the effects, which they produce in media texts, were singled out

Deictic Representations of Person in Media Discourse

AbstractThis paper aims to analyze the deictic representations of person in the British and American media discourse, mostly focusing on such genres and subgenres as newspaper articles, interviews, letters to editors, opinions, headlines and advertisements. For this purpose, we wish to introduce a theoretical framework for the study and then we hope to present certain ways in which deictic expressions (personal, possessive and reflexive pronouns) represent person. Theoretical framework for our study is based upon the socio-cognitive approach, which gives priority to individual practices and subjectivity over social practices in discourse as well as the definition of discourse based on knowledge. The reason why we focus on the media discourse is obvious. The high degree of personalized conceptualization and contextualization dominated by a large number of subjective factors prevail in the above-mentioned genres and subgenres of media discourse. The deictic representations of person play the key role in this process.

Rebels with a Cause: (Re)defining Identities and Culture in Contemporary French Cinema

In Fall 2005, widespread riots shook France. Was Paris really burning? What actually did happen in France that fall? If the “social unrest,” as it was called was symptomatic of serious social and political issues in France, it was largely misconstrued in some American media outlets. As a corollary, American students of French at times seem to have an inaccurate perception of the period. All the issues underlying the 2005 riots are at the forefront of today’ French socio-political debate, especially since a central political figure at the time, Nicolas Sarkozy, was since elected president. These issues revolve around questions of integration of an increasingly diverse population, social justice, unemployment and poverty. After addressing some of the reasons for the divergence in French and American media discourse, the paper examines in depth France’s contemporary social climate, as portrayed in recent French films, from La Haine to Entre les murs. These films, which represent a fragmented French youth in the midst of redefining its identities, oscillating between revolt and desire for integration in a changing culture, constitute effective entry points to present FL students with contemporary cultural contexts and content. Using the frameworks of multiliteracies and intercultural communicative competence, pedagogical techniques are presented to help guide learners explore difficult, yet critically important topics to improve their understanding of French – and American – culture(s).

The Semiotic Foundations of Media Narratives: Saddam and Nasser in the American Mass Media

Abstract The article examines the impact of cultural structures on journalistic story telling. It argues that the mass media can be understood in neofunctionalist terms as a subsystem of civil society. Mass media discourses are therefore responsive to the cultural forms shaping civil discourse. At the core of American media discourse is a set of binary codes that specify civic virtues and vices. These codes provide the foundation from which more complex narrative forms are constructed in the American mass media. The proposed model of codes and narratives is briefly applied in a comparative analysis of American mass media interpretations of Gamal Abdel Nasser and the 1956 Suez crisis, and Saddam Hussein and the 1990-1991 Gulf War.(Sociology)

A Comparative Study of Discursive Constructions of Chinese Smog Documentary in American and Chinese News coverage

This article investigates the corpus-based discourse study of the representations of smog documentary Under the Dome in five Chinese media (Xinhua News, People’s Daily, China News, Guangming Daily and Caijing Net) and four American media (The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, The Washington Post and USA Today). It is found that dialectical relationship between discourse and culture, discourse and politics as exemplified by the historical issues, various linguistic forms and discursive strategies. The findings suggest that Chinese media discourse about Chai’s smog documentary tends to be unitary, while American media discourse focuses on the whole story of the event and constructs an integrated discourse event with diverse perspectives. American news reports inclined to take a determinative attitude to accuse Chinese government’ censorship while Chinese news report focuses on expressing people’s emotion and opinion toward the smog documentary and Chai Jing.