December 17, 2015, Humanities and Social Studies Division of Naberezhnye Chelny Institute held training course dedicated to Linguistic text safety in Mass Media within TEMPUS ALLMEET.
Nobody wants war but many need hatred (Max Frish). That was the opening sentence for the training course held by Oksana Gunko, associated professor at Mass Media Department. The quotation represents the fact how people perceive special statements in a text that draw their attention. If an individual feels some threat it triggers aggression and he starts unconsciously seeking for an enemy.
An enemy image reflects the following ideas:
1) The powers that be. Visualization is part and parcel of the image. There are certain techniques of drawing attention like harsh words or seemingly inappropriate stylistic mismatch.
2) An enemy as ethnical other in a dominating ethnic group. It is not a person himself who evokes interest amid people but his belonging to other nationality or social group. Such peculiarities are intentionally highlighted in the text to allow people to create an enemy image.
3) An external enemy. When distinguishing “We” and “They”, it evokes an enemy’s image in the readers’ mind on the federal level. Some journalist share their individual views and the readership accepts it as a commonly held idea.
Furthermore, the notion of verbal aggression and its types were discussed within the training course. It can be presented in the text explicitly and implicitly. The purpose of verbal aggression is to generate aggression and feed it in the addressee. Quotations having verbal aggression elements impact on the readership’s perception. One more devise of verbal aggression is changing neutral meaning to negative. The side-effects of verbal aggression are social unrest and shattering the language norms.
The second part of the course was held by Rimma Mukhametzyanova, senior lecture at Mass Media Department. She introduced the audience to Journalist behaviour in emergency. She touched upon some rules of communication with traumatized people. Moreover, she lighted upon the reasons why people are keen to be interviewed: they want to draw attention to a problem. In conclusion, Rimma Ravilevna gave some tips considering an interview with traumatized people.
Galina Antsiferova, associated professor at Mass Media Department continued the course with her topic on Tolerance aspects in the social networks. For a journalist it is a must to think twice before posting something in the social networks. Careless attitude towards this professional rule can lead to undesirable consequences.