Focusing and communicative structure of a news media fact

Abstract

The pragmatic impact of media facts is realized by focusing significant elements. Focus is the only acceptable tool for highlighting important information and attracting attention of addressees in news media facts, most of which are characterized by a reflective type of reality representation and do not have high stylistic expressiveness. The impact is characterized as hidden, since, with a minimal presence of rhetorical means, news reports are able to change the picture of the world as intended by the author. The purpose of the proposed study was to identify the specifics of the communicative structure and the mechanisms for focusing news media facts that reflect reality as accurately as possible. A communicative analysis of a continuous sampling of media facts on the news feed of some news agencies with a total volume of 433 propositions was performed. From the point of view of the thematic-rhematic articulation, media facts on the news feed are undivided rhematic constructions. There is a new information—arheme; the theme as an indicator of the previous context is absent, with a focus and topic as less focused parts being also identified. In addition to the conventional focus at the end of a sentence accented units were found at the beginning and middle of a sentence. In the absence of special markers, the fact suggests several variants of focus the elements in the beginning and the end of the sentence can be expanded with numerals, contrast and other focus-sensitive elements in order to intensify the focus. Depending on the intention of the author, evidentiality is focused by parcellation and defocused by direct or indirect speech. The expressive potential of the focus as the ability to create intrigue and ambiguity was also revealed in the news media fact.