Hybridization as a Form of Media "Extension": Stand-up Technologies in Infotainment Discourse (A Case Study of the Jim Jefferies Late Night Talk Show)
<i>Purpose</i>. The article addresses the issue of media discourse hybridization, the latter being the result of discourse-andgenre transgression and the source of new discursive practices, particularly, infotainment. The growing demands of society for information and the increasing worldwide popularity of humorous programs (especially stand-up comedies) have triggered the emergence of a unique media product - The Jim Jefferies Show. The salient feature of the talk show is that its host and producer is a famous stand-up comedian. Jim Jefferies' versatile, controversial, belief-challenging and thought-provoking satirical comedy has won him admiration and respect across the USA and abroad. <i>Results</i>. Adopting an interdisciplinary, integrated approach, we explore the problem of media discourse technologization and game-ization. The research is based on the premises of theory of discourse, pragma- and sociolinguistic discourse studies, critical discourse analysis, philosophy of discourse and philosophy of play and games. We argue that incorporating stand-up technologies, also referred to as attractions, into informational discourse brings about a powerful discursive shift and comprehensive hybridization manifested in multiple interdiscursivity (with a variety of types and kinds of discourse involved: informational and entertaining, institutional [status bound] and personal [personality bound], existential and habitual; critical, political, comical; simulative), multiple destination (along with information-offering [news] and entertainment [fun], opinion, critique, subversion, shock) and multiple functions (informational, orientational, that of solidarity vs. agonistic, actional, axiological and “ludenic”). <i>Conclusion</i>. The new discursive practice as an extension of media and man, homo ludens , meets demands and values of the consumer society, agrees with the postmodernist Zeitgeist and reveals a carnivalesque media chronotope.