Types of addressee in media discourse

Abstract

The article presents the study of the addressee of modern media discourse. The author considers the communication model of information interaction between people, which is dominant in digital media. This model is characterized by the activity of the audience, for which the media world often becomes the only reality. This caused a blurring of the media discourse boundaries, as a result of which the verbal reaction of the addressee, previously observed mainly in everyday communication, goes into the media discourse. The segmentation of the target field proposed in the article, which includes all participants in the media discourse, takes into account the intention of the participants in communication. Cognitive intention determines the addressee’s role and communicative intention realizes the author’s potential. Interactivity does not imply a clear separation between the addressee and addresser, which is observed in natural communication. Communicative intention is inherent in the author of the message. Being implemented in media discourse, communicative intention provides the author with the status of the subject of constructing media reality and is one of the important parameters of the segmentation of the addressee field. Depending on the communicative intention, two types of addressees are distinguished in the address field, i.e. repeaters and non-repeaters. Repeaters are involved in the construction of the media reality. Professional and non-professional repeaters, as well as institutional entities, stand out in this segment. The first ones are journalists who are recipients of objective reality and recipients of media reality and transmit information further to the addressee field. Unprofessional repeaters are citizen journalists that create their own content and interpret previous massages. The third subgroup includes social groups that have gained access to a mass audience and are interested in saturating the mass consciousness with the “right” news. The intension of non-translators does not imply their verbal reactivity in the media discourse. In this segment of the address field, there have been selected positive recipients that are configured for a productive perception of media content in order to obtain certain information and negative recipients with their prejudice that inhibits the selection of facts at the stage of perception and, therefore, the adaptation of the world picture to a changing reality.