Facetious tone as a technique for organization of interaction in news television communicate

Abstract

The article is devoted to the use of facetious tonality in news broadcasting on Russian TV channels (Channel One Russia, Russia-1, Russia-24, RBC, etc.). The object of this study is not merely informing in TV news communicant, but the communicative interaction of the participants representing the news to the audience. Acknowledgement of the thesis concerning the use of humor in mass media for the sake of professional communicative purposes is the basic attitude of the study. One of the tasks in such media formats, where a professional uses all possible communicative channels, is the task of organizing interaction in the conditions of broadcasting simultaneity. For such organization, professionals (hosts, journalists, experts) use a facetious tonality on the air. The research illustrates that the study of humor in the media is multifarious and diverse: firstly, parody media and genres are studied; secondly, the so-called comedy journalism is researched; thirdly, the use of humor in ‘serious’ news is analyzed. The study of the latter often leads some authors to the conclusion about the influential and even manipulative function of humor. Our analysis revealed three tasks to be solved with the help of facetious tonality: 1) demonstration of metatext interactions to actualize the event, 2) demonstration of the communicative role and status, 3) demonstration of a common position about the subject of the news report. The general purpose of using a facetious tonality is defined in the article as demonstration the concept of “demonstration” shows that the analyzed jokes on the air are not just an emotional reaction (as in ordinary communication), but also a rational technique.