Nationally Orientated Communication as The Basic Function of Professional Activity in English Mass Media

Abstract

This article aims to disclose the communicative essence of English media discourse and the specificity of the information transmitted, which is determined by both interrelated parties (i.e. media sources and readers) involved in this socially valid communicative process. English media discourse is examined in the British and American variants.

The three parts of media communication comprising the author, the addressee, and the information itself are actualized in media discourse articles in a very peculiar form of their interconnection. The media orientation towards the addressee, i.e. the British and American public, leads to the articles being not only linguistically adapted, but also thematically focused on information which is habitual and even desirable for each of the said communities. The author often acts as a moderator who stays, figuratively speaking, behind the scenes, and merely regulates or verbalizes the information communicated by various representatives of the nations regarded as his or her full-fledged co-authors. The article also considers the gender aspect of media communications where male and female issues bear their respective linguistic and thematic features. The emotional colouring of the transmitted information turns out to be another specific point of the English media discourse that appeals to the British and American public through the use of certain linguistic means. The authors conclude that from the national identity-related perspective English media communication may be characterized as an information field that incorporates issues of importance for both nations, renders them with the help of nationally adapted wording, and thus even forms a kind of “energy space.”