Information and Psychological War in the Media:a Discourse Analyst’s Perspective
In the paper, information and psychological war is considered as a phenomenon of media communication. The material for the study includes 101 texts, retrieved from the English language quality press, covering the period 01.01.2010- 11.10.2019. It is argued that cognitive-discursive method proves adequate for the purpose of analyzing a complex nature of information confrontation, textualized in the media. The notion of discourse-world of information war is introduced to define a representational macrostructure in the discourse of the American mass media. Key concepts constituting the macrostructure of the discourse-world are systematized: DISINFORMATION, PROPAGANDA, CYBER, WARFARE, COUP, CONSPIRACY, OUTLET, JOURNALIST, INTELLIGENCE,WAR. The notion of world-modeling potential of the concept is introduced. On the example of DISINFOR- MATION, it is shown that parameters of semiotic density, syntagmatic relations, evaluative representations, and factual information specify it in the media discourse. The results may encourage further development of the theory of the language of information war.