Virability of sociocultural stereotypes in american media discourse

Abstract

The paper presents the conception of dynamics of media stereotyping that comprises emergence, functioning, disappearance or return of sociocultural stereotypes in American media discourse. Dynamics of media stereotyping is a cognitive and linguistic process, stimulated by social, cultural and media factors. A sociocultural stereotype is defined in our work as a verbalized cognitive structure that represents simplified and conventional image of an individual, a group or a phenomenon of a particular social environment. Sociocultural stereotypes are formed in the process of evaluative categorization, which is a mental process of dividing social phenomena, groups, and individuals into categories in compliance with national ideals, cultural values and social standards. Media discourse is the domain in which sociocultural stereotypes are formed and changed. Linguistic representations of sociocultural stereotypes reflect their changes that comprise evaluative variation, content modification, activation or inactivation due to lack of new information about the referents of stereotypes in media discourse. Inactivation leads to disappearance or reinterpretation of sociocultural stereotypes of American media discourse. Reappearance of a vanished sociocultural stereotype is defined in the paper as iteration. The conception of media stereotyping contributes to the development of cognitive-linguistic approach to mass communication study.