Engineering Media Texts with High Dialogic Potential

Abstract

This article focuses on the engineering of media texts characterized by a high level of public engagement, wherein the dialogic potential of media communications is fully realized. The empirical basis of the study comprises online media texts from leading news outlets, analyzed for their comment volume, sourced from Brand Analytics, a prominent media analysis and monitoring company. The sample was enriched weekly from the database, resulting in a total of 60 media texts and 28,742 comments. The findings reveal that three media players with varying audience sizes — lenta.ru, ria.ru, and vc.ru — exhibit the greatest dialogic potential. The first two outlets are conceptually aligned in terms of themes, genre characteristics, and structural text engineering. In contrast, vc.ru explores distinct themes that set it apart from its competitors, introducing a novel approach to content presentation. The intentions of these publications can be described as identical, aiming to portray an objective and impartial stance in their reporting. Notably, emphasis is placed on demonstrating openness and sincerity, which contribute to the qualities of reliability and verifiability in these media texts. The study illustrates that the techniques employed to achieve this intention operate within both intra- and extralinguistic dimensions, as well as in the IT capabilities and technological aspects of media platforms. It is established that the genre nature of media texts with high engagement indices predominantly aligns with the news (or informational) genre group.

Keywords

• media text
• high-engagement media texts
• online news outlets
• media effectiveness
• dialogicity