News Media Narrative in the Vkontakte Social Network: Discursive Features

Section: Media Language

Social networks play a special role at the present stage of journalism development being used as platforms for posting media materials on the Internet. Leading Russian media outlets have their own pages on different social networks. As social network users primarily turn to news materials, the object of this research was the news discourse presented in the most popular social network in Russia, VKontakte. In a case study of materials from RBC, RIA Novosti and Komsomolskaya Pravda, the authors of the article examined the linguistic features of a modern news media text and media discourse, in particular the expressive possibilities of the news media narrative as one of the ways to organize narrative in a media text. High-quality news content generates a steady interest in information consumption through the VKontakte social network and therefore increases the engagement index of the media outlets that are represented there. The article uses such theoretical concepts as media text, media narrative, and narrative organization of a news text. A news media text is considered in the light of the categories of narrativeness, discursiveness, hypertextuality, polycodeness, and engagement.

Aleksandrova I. B. (2018) Medianarrativ o voyne [War Media Narrative]. Medialingvistika 5 (1): 21–33. (In Russian)

Alevizaki O. R., Kara-Murza E. S., Lomykina N. Y., Agafonova M. A. (2019) Marketing in Social Networks for Promoting Mass Media Brands. Scientific and Technical Information Processing 46: 238–247. DOI: https://doi.org/10.3103/S0147688219040063

Analiz novostey kak diskursa [Analysis of News as Discourse] (2003) In Kommunikativnye strategii kul’tury. Khrestomatia po kursu “Vvedenie v teoriyu kommunikatsii” [Communicative Strategies of Culture. A Textbook on the Course “Introduction to the Theory of Communication”]. Novosibirsk: Novosibirsk St. Univ. Publ. Pp. 107–131. (In Russian)

Bart R. (1975) Semiologiya [Semiology]. In Strukturalizm: «za» i «protiv». Sbornik statey [Structuralism: “Pros” and “Cons”. Collected Papers]. Moscow: Progress Publ. Pp. 114–164. (In Russian)

Bartlett F. S. (1932) Remembering: A Study in Experimental and Social Psychology. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. DOI: https://doi.org/10.1111/j.2044-8279.1933.tb02913.x

Bartlett F. (1959) Psihika cheloveka v trude i igre [Human Psyche in Work and Play]. Moscow: Academy of Pedagogical Sciences of the RSFSR Publ. (In Russian)

Bakhtin M. M. (1972) Problemy poetiki Dostoevskogo [Problems of Dostoevsky’s Poetics]. Moscow: Hudozhestvennaya literaturа Publ. (In Russian)

Bolotnov A. V. (2017) Regulyativnye vozmozhnosti tretichnyh mediatekstov [Regulatory Capabilities of Tertiary Media Texts]. TSPU Bulletin 7 (184): 41– 47. (In Russian)

Bozrikova S. A. (2012) Kriminal’nyy narrativ: narrativnaya zhurnalistika v SShA i v Rossii [Criminal Narrative: Narrative Journalism in the USA and Russia]. In S. A. Lyashko (ed.) Aktual’nye problemy nauki i obrazovaniya: sb. nauch. st. [Current Problems of Science and Education: a Collection of Scientific Papers]. Balashov: Nikolaev Publ. (In Russian)

Bozrikova S. A., Tataru L. V. (2012) Narrativnaya zhurnalistika v Amerike i v Rossii [Narrative Journalism in America and Russia]. Balashov: Nikolaev Publ. (In Russian)

Castells M. (2004) Galaktika Internet: Razmyshleniya ob Internete, biznese i obshchestve [The Internet Galaxy: Reflections on the Internet, Business and Society]. Ekaterinburg: U-Faktoriya Publ. (In Russian)

Chomsky N. (1972) Yazyk i myshlenie [Language and Mind]. Moscow: Moscow St. Univ. Publ. (In Russian)

Dobrosklonskaya T. G. (2009) Mediatekst kak edinica diskursa sredstv massovoy informazii [Media Text as a Unit of Mass Media Discourse]. In T. G. Dobrosklonskaya (ed.) Aktual’nye protsessy v razlichnykh tipakh diskursov: politicheskiy, mediynyy, reklamnyy diskursy i internet-kommunikatsiya: materialy mezhdunar. konf. (19–21 iyunya 2009 g.) [Current Processes in Various Types of Discourse: Political, Media, Advertising Discourses and Online Communication: Proceedings of the International Conference (June 19-21, 2009)]. Moscow: Yaroslavl’ Publ. Pp. 137–143. (In Russian)

Duskaeva L. R. (2012) Dialogicheskaya priroda gazetnyh rechevyh zhanrov. Izd. 2-e, dop., ispr. [Dialogical Nature of Newspaper Speech Genres. 2nd ed., enlarged and revised]. St. Petersburg: Filol. fakul’tet Publ. (In Russian)

D’yachenko O. V. (2016) Rossiyskie SMI v sotsial’nykh setyakh Facebook i «VKontakte»: analiz aktivnosti i informtsionnykh predpochteniy auditorii [Russian Media in the Facebook and VKontakte Social Networks: an Analysis of Audience Activity and Information Preferences]. Vestn. Mosk. un-ta. Ser. 10: Zhurnalistika 1: 28–45. (In Russian). Available at: https://vestnik.journ.msu.ru/books/2016/1/rossiyskie-smi-v-sotsialnykh-setyakh-facebook-i-v-vkontakt... (accessed: 08.09.2019).

Genett G. (1998) Figury: v 2 t. T. 1–2 [Figures: in 2 vol. Vol. 1–2]. Moscow: Izdvo im. Sabashnikovyh Publ. (In Russian)

Herman D. (2009) Basic Elements of Narrative. Chichester: Wiley-Blackwell. A John Wiley & Sons. Available at: https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/pdf/10.1002/9781444305920.fmatter (aссessed: 03.01.2021). DOI: 10.1002/9781444305920

Jacobson R. (1975) Lingvistika i poetika [Linguistics and Poetics]. In Strukturalizm: «za» i «protiv». Sbornik statey [Structuralism: “Pros” and “Cons”. Collected Papers]. Moscow: Progress Publ. Pp. 193–231. (In Russian)

Kachanov D. G. (2020) Narrativ v mul’timediynoy zhurnalistike: analiz rossiyskikh i zarubezhnykh mediaproektov [Narrative in Multimedia Journalism: an Analysis of Russian and Foreign Media Projects]. Vestn. Mosk. un-ta. Ser. 10: Zhurnalistika 1: 79–101. (In Russian). Available at: https://vestnik.journ.msu.ru/books/2020/1/narrativ-v-multimediynoy-zhurnalistike-analiz-rossiyskikh-... (accessed: 03.01.2021). DOI: 10.30547/vestnik.journ.1.2020.79101

Kazak M. Yu. (2012) Specifika sovremennogo mediateksta [Specifics of the Modern Media Text]. Sovremennyy diskurs-analiz 6: 30–42. (In Russian)

Knoller N., Ben-Urie U. (2015) The Holodeck Is All Around Us – Interface Dispositifs in Interactive Digital Storytelling. In H. Koenitz, G. Ferri, M. Haahr, D. Sezen, T. İ. Sezen (eds.) Interactive Digital Narrative: History, Theory and Practice. New York; London: Routledge. Available at: https://www.researchgate.net/publication/271013270_Learning_Through_Interactive_Digital_Narratives (aссessed: 03.01.2021).

Kramer M., Call W. (eds.) (2007) Telling True Stories: a Nonfiction Writers’ Guide from the Nieman Foundation at Harvard University. New York: A Plume book.

Kurilov A. E. (2016) Periodicheskie kolebaniya novostnogo polya rossiyskikh informatsionnykh agentstv [Periodic Fluctuations in the News Field of Russian News Agencies]. Voprosy teorii i praktiki zhurnalistiki 5 (1): 67–80. (In Russian)

Labov W., Waletzky J. (1997) Oral Versions of Personal Experience: Three Decades of Narrative Analysis. Special Volume of a Journal of Narrative and Life History 7: 3–38. DOI: https://doi.org/10.1075/jnlh.7.02nar

Leví-Strauss K. (2001) Strukturnaya antropologiya [Structural Anthropology]. Moscow: EKSMO-Press Publ. (In Russian)

Leont’ev A. A. (2008) Psiholingvisticheskie osobennosti yazyka SMI [Psycholinguistic Features of the Media Language]. In M. N. Volodina (ed.) Yazyk sredstv massovoy informatsii: Uchebnoe posobie dlya vuzov [The Media Language: a Study Guide for Universities]. Moscow: Akademicheskiy prospect Publ.; Al’ma Mater Publ. Pp. 146–152. (In Russian)

Lukina M. M. (2009) Transformaciya zhurnalistskogo teksta v usloviyah internet-sredy [Тransformation of a Journalistic Text in the Online Environment]. Vestn. Mosk. un-ta. Ser. 10: Zhurnalistika 3: 54–72. (In Russian)

Malyshev D. A. (2015) Sobytie i narrativ v telenovostyah, posvyashchennyh deyatel’nosti politikov [Event and Narrative in TV News Dedicated to Politicians’ Activities]. Politicheskaya lingvistika 3 (53): 124–134. (In Russian)

Matveeva T. V. (2010) Polnyy slovar’ lingvisticheskikh terminov [Complete Dictionary of Linguistic Terms]. Rostov on Don: Feniks Publ. (In Russian)

Milostivaya A. I. (2015) Zhanr gazetnogo teksta i narrativnost’ [Newspaper Text Genre and Narrativeness]. Sovremennye problemy nauki i obrazovaniya 2–3. (In Russian). Available at: http://science-education.ru/ru/article/view?id=23677 (accessed: 26.11.2020).

Minskiy M. (1979) Freymy dlya predstavleniya znaniy [Frames for Knowledge Representation]. Moscow: Energiya Publ. (In Russian)

Oschatz C., Marker C. (2020) Long-Term Persuasive Effects in Narrative Communication Research: a Meta-Analysis. Journal of Communication 70 (4): 473–496. DOI: https://doi.org/10.1093/joc/jqaa017

Pil’gun M.A. (2015) Mul’timediynyy tekst: osobennosti funktsionirovaniya i perspektivy razvitiya [A Multimedia Text: Operation Features and Development Prospects]. Uch. zapiski Kazansk. un-ta 157 (5): 192–204. (In Russian)

Pier J. (2013) Sushchestvuet li francuzskaya postklassicheskaya narratologiya? [Does French Post-Classical Narratology Exist?]. Narratorium 1–2 (5–6). (In Russian). Available at: http://narratorium.rggu.ru/article.html?id=2631084 (accessed: 08.10.2019).

Propp V. Ya. (1928) Morfologiya skazki [Morphology of a Fairy Tale]. Leningrad: ACADEMIA Publ. (In Russian)

Rozhdestvenskiy Yu. V. (1979) Vvedenie v obshchuyu filologiyu [Introduction to General Philology]. Moscow: Vysshaya shkola Publ. (In Russian)

Sanford A., Garrod S. (1981) Understanding Written Language: Explorations of Comprehension Beyond the Sentence. Chichester: John Wiley & Sons.

Schank R. S., Abelson R. P. (1977) Scripts, Plans, Goals and Understanding: an Inquiry into Human Knowledge Structures. Hillsdale; New Jersey: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates.

Schank R., Birnbaum L., Mey J. (1989) K integracii semantiki i pragmatiki [To the Integration of Semantics and Pragmatics]. In B. Yu. Gorodetskiy (ed.) Novoe v zarubezhnoy lingvistike. Komp’yuternaya lingvistika. Vyp. 24 [Foreign Linguistics News. Computer Linguistics. Vol. 24]. Moscow: Progress Publ. Pp. 32–48. (In Russian)

Shmid V. (2003) Narratologiya [Narratology]. Moscow: Yazyki slavyanskoy kul’tury Publ. (In Russian)

Todorov Ts. (1975) Poetika [Poetics]. In Strukturalizm: «za» i «protiv». Sbornik statey [Structuralism: “Pros” and “Cons”. Collected Papers]. Moscow: Progress Publ. Pp. 37–114. (In Russian)

Tyupa V. I. (2002) Ocherk sovremennoj narratologii [Modern Narratology Essay]. Kritika i semiotika 5: 5–31. (In Russian)

van Dijk T. A. (1991) The Interdisciplinary Study of News as Discourse. In K. Bruhn-Jensen, N. Jankowksi (eds.) Handbook of Qualitative Methods in Mass Communication Research. London: Routledge. Pp. 108–120. Available at: http://www.discourses.org/OldArticles/The%20interdisciplinary%20study%20of%20news%20as%20discourse.p... (assessed: 13.04.2020).

Vartanova E. L., Gladkova A. A. (2020) Tsifrovoy kapital v kontekste kontseptsii nematerial’nykh kapitalov [Digital Capital in the Context of the Concept of Intangible Capitals]. Mediascope 1. (In Russian). Available at: http://www.mediascope.ru/2614. DOI: 10.30547/mediascope.1.2020.8 (accessed: 13.02.2021).

Vorontsova T. A. (2017) Novostnoy zagolovok kak reprezentant sobytiya [A News Headline as an Event Representative]. Politicheskaya lingvistika 6 (66): 21–25. (In Russian)