INFORMATION TECHNOLOGIES OF SEMANTIC DISTORTIONS IN CLICKBAIT HEADLINES
The article discusses information technologies of creating semantic space of clickbait headlines on the material of online English news editions. Modern mass media are noted for their extensive use of fake information, since in the time of conflict escalation in international relations and sharper confrontation of the sides involved in information war, word is becoming an active tool of mass consciousness manipulation and a powerful weapon of ideological struggle. The underlying assumption of the research provides an urgent task of disclosing innovative means used in online resources designed not only to attract the readers’ attention to the events covered, but also to skillfully manage the very process of information quest. The article proceeds from recognizing the predominant role in this process of the so-called post-truth political culture, perpetuated in English mass media. The author elaborates the idea of producing a new type of political discourse of conflict that comes out under a special headline that dramatically pushes the boundaries of a text and opens up an access into the realm of hypertext. A clickbait headline is marked by specific formal and semantic features and enables the author of the article to make use of information technologies aimed at sense saturation of the content which are intended to subject it to gross distortions. By clicking links the reader is offered an easy chance to instantly choose various routes of semantic development of a problem in question and bring in unexpected turns via unpredictable but preconceived paths leading onto remote areas for delivering intentional attacks on the information ground. As a result of investigation the author establishes discursive practices, foregrounding false toposes of events; making use of quasi-citations; creating by a click an umbrella-stand effect with access to abundant fake information; implanting perverse ideological imperatives.