EMOTIOGENICITY OF MODERN MEDIA TEXTS

Abstract

The article is devoted to studying of the emotional saturation of media texts; some features of the signs, causing the emotional reaction, are distinguished. Such signs intensify and canalize the emotional reaction; they serve as specific factors of the media text facilitating its cognitive-emotional assimilation. On the example of English-speaking social networks, the authors show that the emotional influence of media texts can be expanded because of the usage of special means: emoticons, emoji and smileys. System approach is the methodological framework of this research. The purpose of the research is achieved by application of descriptive-comparative method, method of definitional, lexical-semantical, stylistic and emotive analyses. Real communicative acts of users of social network «Facebook» and video hosting company «YouTube» act as material of the research. The authors thoroughly analyze the signs stimulating emotional reaction; establish a specific connection between time of their emergence on the Internet and the events, which have become an incentive of their appearance. The authors suggest to specify such a characteristic of media texts as the emotional saturation, which can be described in the most various ways. For example, according to the author’s point of view, it is possible to create a scale for determination of emotional saturation within an interval «high-low» with quantitatively expressed intermediate values. This research has a practical value, because its results can be offered for theoretical and practical studying in such disciplines as pragmalinguistics, media linguistics, psycholinguistics, linguistic ecology, and for self-studying by philologists, sociologists, experts in PR-technologies.

Keywords

• emotiogenicity
• virtual communication
• media discourse
• social networks
• emoticon
• smiley
• emoji.yu