Intertitles in Short Videos in Modern Internet Communication

Abstract

The article is devoted to the study of current issues of Internet communication related to the video format of information presentation and intertitles. The aim of the paper is to study intertitles in short videos in modern Internet communication which is achieved by using a set of methods: lexical and stylistic analysis, grammatical and stylistic analysis, linguasemiotic analysis, elements of content and discursive analysis, as well as diachronic and interpretive analysis. The article proposed and confirmed the hypothesis of returning intertitles to the content structure of short videos using the example of publications of TikTok, VKontakte, Telegram and other services. A tendency towards a decrease in the duration of video content has been proven, caused by a decrease in the ability of society to critical assessment and analysis, fragmentation, and discontinuity in information perception. The novelty is to establish the fact that with the same roles in video content, modern intertitles differ from silent movie intertitles: (a) by location (modern intertitles are placed right inside the scene, not between scenes); (b) by a conscious rejection of the voiceover text (in case of silent movies, the connection of voiceover and video sequence was impossible, whereas in modern video content, sound is deliberately excluded, providing the opportunity to watch the video in the “no sound” mode). Due to the time limit and accelerated pace of life, the addressee (viewer) often cannot turn on the soundtrack of videos, while a smartphone with this content is his constant companion: viewing of the studied video formats can take place in places unsuitable for their full perception (in transport, in queues, at meetings, etc.) – where extraneous sound will create inconvenience for others. The work contributes to the development of discursive linguistics, media linguistics, Internet linguistics, linguasemiotics, is useful in the practical activities of journalists, editors, philologists, public relations specialists. The article defines the prospect for researchers of media and psycholinguistic addictions, since the forced compression of film text at the beginning of the 20th century prompted society to develop technical capabilities for the formation of high-quality full-length cinema with modern sound and text design, which became familiar to the addressee at the beginning of the 21st century. At the same time, the accelerating pace of life in information flows returns to society the need for information compression, like the one that was at the beginning of the 20th century, returning the viewer de facto to the era of silent cinema.

Keywords

• titles
• intertitles
• silent cinema
• video content
• internet communication
• tiktok
• vkontakte
• shorts
• reels