Communicative aggression in modern media: the Ukrainian context

Abstract

The article is devoted to revealing the essence of communicative aggression in the media. In particular, the focus is on communication tools that form / reinforce negative attitudes toward certain characters, events, phenomena, etc. The analysis of the media and advertising texts revealed that the main tools in generating aggression are lexical units, represented by abusive vocabulary, jargon. By actively using these linguistic units, journalists are unknowingly accustoming readers to such vocabulary, introducing the latter into commonly accepted units. Gradually used jargon in the mass media loses its secrecy, specific comparative function that is to be secret or special lexical units. The aggressiveness of the modern information space is largely caused by a clear opposition, the opposition of «one’s» and «other’s», which, as a rule, amplifies the negative phenomena of the real world. In the textual media space, images of «one’s» and «other’s» are most often in opposition. The stereotype of perceiving the «other’s» as an enemy that carries a danger, a threat to «one’s», works. The aggression against the «other’s» was quite active because of negative-evaluative characteristics, «hostile» labels, inappropriate use of national and ethnic names, creation of a stereotypical image of national minorities as an enemy. This tendency is most often observed in materials that cover crime issues, car accidents. Aggressiveness of media texts gives a rise to a considerable number of lexical units pertaining to the semantic fields «death», «crime», «corruption», «bribery», which, according to the researchers, dominate all evaluation units of media materials for a long time. Communicative aggression in mass media can find its expression not only openly but also hidden by updating the negatively assessed potential of individual lexical units.