CC BY
56
RUSSIAN LINGUISTIC BULLETIN 4 (4) 2015
Sociolinguistics. Usage of language (UDC 8127)
DOI: 10.18454/RULB.4.20 Гущина Л.В.1, Агапова С.Г.2, Агапова Е.А.3
1,2,3Южный федеральный университет
Статья подготовлена в рамках выполнения государственного задания №2014/174 (номер государственной регистрации НИР: 01201458537).
МАНИПУЛЯТИВНЫЙ ПОТЕНЦИАЛ СМИ В ПОЛИТИЧЕСКОМ ДИСКУРСЕ
Аннотация
Начиная с изобретения телеграфа, радио и телевидения, социальное воздействие коммуникации через средства массовой информации стало предметом интенсивного изучения политологами и социологами. В связи с этим, исследование природы манипуляции в политическом дискурсе и ее двойственной роли в современном обществе представляется нам актуальным. Решение поставленных задач выполнено на основе комплексной методологической основы, которая определяет общую ориентацию и принципы исследования, а также его научные результаты, включая общее философское методологическое понятие диалектического материализма в соответствии с принципами единства формы и содержания, причины и следствия, общей связи явлений. Приведенные наблюдения и полученные результаты свидетельствуют об опасном характере и невероятном потенциале такого явления, как манипуляция средствами массовой информации в политическом дискурсе, способного оказывать влияние на сознание людей, лишая их критического мышления и даже обрекая на пассивность существования.
Ключевые слова: политический дискурс, манипуляция, средства массовой информации.
Gushchina L.V.1, Agapova S.G.2, Agapova E.A.3
1,2,3Southern Federal University
This research is funded within the framework of the state order №2014 /174 (state registration number of NIR: 01201458537). MASS MEDIA'S MANIPULATIVE POTENTIAL IN POLITICAL DISCOURSE
Abstract
Since the invention of telegraph, radio and television which enable contacts with a large audience, the social impact of communication via the mass media has been a subject of intense research by political and social scientists. Thus the paper discusses the nature of manipulation in political discourse and its ambivalent role in the modern society. The solution of the research tasks is carried out on the basis of the complex methodological base which defines the general orientation and the principles of research, as well as its scientific results, including the general philosophical methodological concept of dialectic materialism in accordance with the principles of unity of form and content, cause and effect, general communication of the phenomena. In conclusion, it summarizes that mentioned above phenomenon is both serious and dangerous, being capable to influence people's consciousness, depriving them of their critical thinking, and even dooming them to the passivity of life.
Keywords: political discourse, manipulation, mass media.
1. Introduction.
The relevance of the present article is caused by the fact that the beginning of the 21st century is accompanied by the creation of global informational space and formation of new people’s world outlook that are greatly influenced by all means of mass communication.
Modern mass media has created new opportunities for controlling the contents and distribution of information, increasing the efficiency of its usage. A real revolution has occurred in social and political management. The main orientation of the evolution of power technologies and the purpose of their alterations and improvement involve the usage of the smallest expenses of means in order to gain the maximum effect of impact on people, providing their voluntary subordination. A. Toffler (1990) notes that the superior quality and the greatest efficiency of the modern power is given by the knowledge that allow, firstly, to achieve the required goals, spending power resources minimally; secondly, to convict people in their own personal interests in this purpose, and, thirdly, to turn their opponents into allies.
2. Manipulation by Mass Media.
The mass media plays an important role in modern society, being a powerful resource used by politicians. It has contributed to the creation of such phenomenon as political language. As a result, the informational field has become very inconsistent and created a set of various representations of one and the same phenomenon, reality or event, often mutually excluding each other.
Political language represents a special sign system intended for political communication. It is not a prerogative of professional politicians or government officials, but a resource that is open for all the members of language community and connected with some specific use of public language as a means of persuasion and control. Political language can be defined as a subsystem of national language, intended for the political communication, including propaganda of some ideas, emotive impact on citizens and their subsequent motivation to some political actions, developments of public consensus. Political language is generally available as it is situated between two poles: the functionally caused special language and the slang of a certain group with the ideology peculiar to it. Therefore political language has to be available to comprehension
according to the aims of propaganda and focused on a certain group for some historical, social and psychological reasons.
In other words, political language is deprived of the "secret speech" property. It does not contain specific lexicon, unknown and unfamiliar to some members of society. Thus, language becomes political due to the contents of transmitted information and circumstances in which the distribution of information and functions takes place. Political language is a political reality as language is not only a tool to describe some events, but also their part that has a strong impact on the formation of their value, contributing to shape political roles recognized by politicians and society on the whole.
It is obvious that political language represents the integral part of political communication as some speech activity focused on propaganda of these or those ideas, emotional impact on citizens of a country and their motivation to some political actions for the development of public consent, acceptance and justification of socio-political decisions in the conditions of plurality of viewpoints in the given society. According to A.P. Chudinov (2003), there are four kinds of political communication: 1) office (internal,
bureaucratic) political communication, focused on the interaction inside the governmental or public institutions; 2) political communication in the public political activity, oriented toward various segments of population, being a form of implementation of professional and public work of political leaders and activists; 3) political communication which is carried out by journalists and focused on the mass audience in forms of interviews, analytical articles in newspapers, written by journalists, political scientists and / or politicians; 4) political speech activity of "ordinary" citizens (not professionals in the field of political communication), participating in meetings, demonstrations, etc.
Thus, it is clear that the distinctive feature of political communication is its mass character. It explains why political language is applied to different types of impact: persuasion, control, manipulation, and the mass media becomes its direct means of implementation and realization.
Discussing the mass media and its influence on masses, we should note that in the post-industrial society the power of knowledge and information becomes prevalent in the social management, overshadowing the influence of the state coercion. The governmental, power coercion is replaced with the informational
15
RUSSIAN LINGUISTIC BULLETIN 4 (4) 2015
influence and psychological coercion. The spiritual sphere of society is subjected to the direct influence of informational environment, whose destructive changes in the form of distorted ethical standards and criteria, inadequate social stereotypes and affirmations, false values influence, in their turn, the state and processes in all main spheres of public life. The distinctive feature of the modern world seems to be a shift to a new qualitative condition of society, characterized by a sharp increase of informational processes and creation of the whole industry of production of information. It is possible to assume that the society of the 21st century is transiting to the qualitatively other form of its existence - to the informational civilization.
The mass media constitutes a specific social institution, i.e. addressing to the society in the course of mass information support of its functioning. It creates a peculiar informational analog of social institutional activity in all their manifestations. The initial function of mass media is information transfer. The analysis of information transmitted through the mass media makes obvious a small number of info senders and a large number of its recipients. Taking into account that any power needs more mediated forms and means of communication between its carriers, performers of power will and citizens, it is possible to note that the mass media is the powerful regulator of public opinion carried out through the information transfer to its large audience.
The mass media has always been the important part of human life. The scientific and technical progress has become an incitement to its development, and as a result, - to psychological means of influence on people. The field for work with the public opinion has grown in hundreds times lately. Knowledge in the fields of psychology and PR have gone deeper. All the enumerated facts have contributed to the emergence of the term "manipulation".
It should be noted that the term "manipulation" (manipulus) occurs from the Latin words which mean: a) a handful (manus - "a hand" and pie - "to fill"), b) a small group, a handful (manus + pi). The second meaning of this word was used to denote a small group of soldiers (about 120 people) in the Roman army.
It is stated that in some European dictionaries "manipulation" in the general meaning is defined as the treatment of objects with some special purposes and intentions; as a manual control and manipulations, made by hands, - i.e. manual actions. The use of this term is closely adjoined to the specified meaning of "manipulation" as skillful actions with levers made by hands. The levers and handles are quite often called manipulators too. As a result of the process of mechanical complication, simulators and artificial substitutes of hands have been called manipulators as special appliances for hard shifting of things with the distanced management (e.g. for loading and unloading of cores with nuclear fuel). All these extensions of meanings contribute to the appearance of the modern figurative sense of the word "manipulation" as a dexterous treatment of people as with objects and / or things.
According to the analysis of some European dictionaries, we can observe a current trend of defining the words with the root “manipulat” in their first meaning as something connected with control or influence for one’s own purposes, and only the second meaning comprises the notion of working with skillful use of one’s hands (Longman Dictionary 2002).
It should be mentioned that the word “manipulation” in the meaning of an act of influence on people or management or some things with dexterity, especially with some scornful implication, as the hidden management or processing, has changed the previous term “Machiavellianism” in political dictionaries (the name of the Italian politician N. Machiavelli became nominal for designation of the moral position "the purpose justifies any means”). Such state of things is caused, firstly, by the shift of the leading accent from the estimated look to a technological one when treating the given phenomenon; and, secondly, by the expansion of a circle of the phenomena to which the term "manipulation" belongs. Today the problem of qualities of certain political leaders changes into the problem of activity of the whole governmental institutions and organizations. Thus, the term "manipulation" is applied in relation to the mass media and political actions, directed to program opinions and / or aspirations of masses, their mental conditions, etc. The ultimate goal of such efforts is directed to have a control over population, its manage- and governability as well as obedience.
Summarizing the information given above, we can suggest that the term “manipulation" has a disapproving coloring. Therefore, we consider a manipulative impact as such influence on the addressee’s behavior that will cause some negative emotions in him / her and which and that, according to S. Kara-Murza (2004), will induce him / her to make such acts that in result the addressee will become "a loser or even a fool".
Being a type of the hidden impact on the addressee and a specific way of his / her management, manipulation is characterized by unseemliness of the manipulator's actions and intentions, contradicting the addressee's will and doing harm to him / her. In our opinion, the main signs of manipulation are as follows: 1) spiritual and psychological influence without any physical abuse (in this case, the targets of manipulation are people's mental structures) in the form of some psychological force or game on the addressee’s weaknesses; 2) orientation of the manipulator's actions in such a way that his / her ultimate goal and the fact of the influence will be unnoticed by the object of manipulation, who still will have an illusion of his / her independent decision-making and implementation of actions, - i.e. the hidden influence; 3) the influence demanding certain knowledge and considerable skills; 4) the treatment of the objects of manipulation not as of people, but as of things, - means of achievement of the manipulator's own purposes; 5) the wish to receive one-sided prize; 6) motivation; 7) the manipulator's skills in the realization of his / her manipulative actions.
One of the most important rules of consciousness manipulation is the ensuring of totalitarian influence, i.e. providing the information, taken only from the completely controlled sources. To ensure the illusion of pluralism, some information messages are created as if from different types of organizations, but they shape uniformed stereotypes. "Unnecessary" information is suppressed. The stream of advertising breaks off the complete perception of information. The impossibility of the analysis and concentration of attention on serious events occurs. The flow of worthless information complicates the search for sense.
It should be noted that consciousness manipulation by means of mass media, first of all, is created for the average person who belongs to the consumer culture rather than to a high one. Information randomization seems only visible. The mass media constructs informational flows in order to create a necessary image of reality for the owners of these or those mass media sources. Selection criteria of messages are based on developed theories and mathematical apparatus. Information is divided in such a way that a person will never gain complete knowledge. All these methods are used to support a necessary level of nervousness which reduces the ability to estimate critically the arriving information in society and increases its suggestibility. Thus, society turns into a ruled mass, consuming the mass culture and being anxious to achieve pleasure at any cost and by any means. Modern society forms a mass person. The dominated way of life in this mass has already been created: it does not have any inclinations to intellectual tasks. The education status significantly has been worsening. People have been judged by their material prosperity instead of their intelligence. New manipulative techniques have brought huge masses of people to the foreground, who are both technically armed and spiritually deprived, for whom the mass culture is the only type of culture. So, in this way the mass culture becomes a useful means to manipulate people and their consciousness.
The freedom of distribution of information has become the basic principle of social atomization and establishment of the liberal order of life. Thus, the acceptance of similar ideas has become a cultural and spiritual shift of great value. The mass media is turning into the main tool for distribution and broadcasting these messages that are urged to influence the public consciousness. In fact, the mass media becomes a peculiar filter that passes ideas, increasing the value of the one and depreciating of the other, polarizing the whole field of culture in this way. To achieve these purposes the mass media refers to some methodical techniques, such as: fabrication of the facts or a direct lie, a special selection of events of reality for messages, gray and black propaganda, psychoses, changes of the sense of words and concepts, simplification and stereotyping, statements and repetitions, etc.
3. Conclusion.
16
RUSSIAN LINGUISTIC BULLETIN 4 (4) 2015
A man of the mass is a special reality without striving for any change and movement. Reflections are replaced with the spontaneous manifestation of the unconscious, motives are changed into impulses, definiteness is exchanged for intolerance. The cultural and creative position loses its status and value. Its place is taken by the consumer’s position, directed toward the material, outside world. The replacement of the cultural domestic production with the western third-rate production contributes to it. The last is aimed at the revision of former cultural representations and values, traditional ways of life, characterizing nations' life from generation to generation. Thus, the illusory forms of life, propagandizing nonspirituality and the consumer’s treatment of reality, are imposed on
people. The ideas of criteria of truth, good, beauty are erased. They inhaled the mass with the force and arrogance of modern progress, but forgot about the spirit. People become mechanistic, lose the integrity of their own nature and as a result lose their ability to have adequate relations with the changing world.
It is easy to manage such society. The majority of people is not capable to analyze and adequately resist manipulative techniques because they consider benefits as their only goals and sense of life. Manipulation is possible due to the control over information and communication that dictate affirmations, representations, rules and models of human activities. In other words, manipulation is possible in the presence of rigid censorship.
1. Murza, S. (2004) Manipulyatsiya Soznaniyem. Moscow.
2. Longman Dictionary of English Language and Culture. (2005) Pearson.
3. Toffler, A. (1990) Powershift: Knowledge, Wealth, and Violence in the 21st Century. Plaza & Janes.
DOI: 10.18454/RULB.4.10 Шовгенин А.Н.1, Шовгенина Е.А.2
1,2Волгоградский государственный университет
ГАЗЕТЫ РУССКОЯЗЫЧНОЙ ДИАСПОРЫ В ГЕРМАНИИ И ЕЁ СОЦИОЛИНГВИСТИЧЕСКОЕ ПРОСТРАНСТВО
Аннотация
Статья посвящена изучению функционирования русского языка в русскоязычной диаспоре Германии. Представлены результаты лингвистического анализа двух ведущих русскоязычных газет, выходящих на территории ФРГ, а также теоретическое осмысление структуры социолингвистического пространства диаспоры как инструмента описания контакта языков.
Ключевые слова: диаспора, Германия, русский язык, ассимиляция, языковой контакт, социолингвистическое пространство.
Shovgenin A.N.1, Shovgenina E.A.2
Volgograd State University
THE NEWSPAPERS OF RUSSIAN-SPEAKING DIASPORA IN GERMANY AND ITS SOCIOLINGUISTIC SPACE
Abstract
The article deals with the problem of the Russian language functioning in the Russian-speaking diaspora of Germany. The results of the linguistic analysis of two leading Russian-speaking newspapers published on the territory of FRG are given. The article also concerns the theoretical assumptions, made based on this analysis, respecting the structure of the diaspora 's sociolinguistic space; which is regarded as promising format of the language contact analysis.
Keywords: diaspora, Germany, Russian language, assimilation, language contact, sociolinguistic space.
1. Introduction
Any language is a natural effect of the constant influence of the nation’s spiritual peculiarity (Постовалова, 1982:46) and it can satisfy its communicative needs. This function is constant and permanent as long as the language exists. The present sets new peculiar problems for the language, though the novelty lies first in the scale of the phenomena and not in their essence. The case in point is the language functions, which it obtains in new, changing geopolitical situation. Socialization function is one of them, or in other words, the function of integration into society with another culture and language. The Russian language press issued on the territory of the Federal Republic of Germany is a striking example of this function.
In the last 35 years, many people have left the CIS and obtained a permanent residence in Germany. According to the official statistics, this country adopted 2.8 million immigrants from 1980 to 1997, including 1.6 million from the USSR (Добровольский, 2002:137), and now over three million residents of Germany speak Russian (see http://www.bmi.bund.de). The Russian-speaking immigrants speak German at different levels, when they migrate to this country; and the number of those, who almost do not speak German, is large. On the other hand, the informational and communicative needs of immigrants are tremendous. They should know and want to know according to what laws and unwritten rules the German society exists and would like to participate in this life. The new principles often shock the immigrants, therefore the acquired experience must be interpreted rationally and emotionally (Менг, Шовгенин, 2004:544-545). The Russian language
newspapers play the significant role to facilitate their integration into the new society. They appear on the whole territory of the present-day Germany. But as noted by K. Meng in her book Sprachbiografien der Russlanddeutschen (Meng, 2001:450), reading is not that significant for the immigrants, and therefore, we cannot expect these Russian language newspapers exert a potent normalizing influence on the Russian language in Germany.
This research is based on the material of two following editions:
• the Russian language weekly «Русская Германия» (РГ) (“Russkaya Germaniya”) and
• the Russian language monthly «Земляки» (З)
(“Zemlyaki”).
Both newspapers appeared first in 1996 and are sold on the whole territory of the FRG. Nowadays the average circulation of the newspaper «Русская Германия» is about 80 000 copies and of the newspaper «Земляки» - 70 000. It is to point out, that the project «Русская Германия» also includes regional editions in addition to the general edition, for example «Рейнская Газета», «Русская Германия - Франкия», «Русская Германия - Гамбург», in all five different regional variants under different titles.
The purpose of «Русская Германия» editors is to publish a newspaper for a wide readership, giving no preference to any particular social or age groups. In its turn the newspaper «Земляки» is specially targeted at Russian Germans, who make the largest group among the Russian speaking immigrants in Germany.
There are analytic articles, literary publications, reports, reviews, interviews, gossips, advertisements of very different contents in both newspapers. As for the thematic scope, the events in Germany take the most important place, because these newspapers are intended to help the immigrants in their integration into new living conditions and new society.
The other themes include Europe, the countries of the former USSR, recollections by Russian Germans, etc.
As the circulation analysis demonstrates: the readership for these newspapers makes approximately 2.6 % of potential readers each, and they are issued in the conditions of rather tough competition not only to other Russian-speaking and actual Russian editions, but also the German press. Practically all immigrants are bilingual to some extent, which allows them to choose an information source, including being switched from language to language. However, the Russian-speaking newspapers provide the immigrants with the important advantage - they use the Russian language for perception of the German reality. Both newspapers are represented on the Internet, but there the information content is not that full as in the printed editions.
17
