The Image of the Hinterland in the Russian and German Mass Media

Abstract

The article considers the media image of the hinterland as objectifying the categories of social exclusion, social inclusion based on the material of the National Corpus of the Russian Language newspaper subcorps and the system of the Berlin-Brandenburg Academy of Sciences digital dictionaries (German). For the purpose of a more in-depth description of this media image, the article also provides a characteristic of a close media image of the province. The research paper establishes synonymic row of units representing the media image of the hinterland, it considers the lexeme of the same name in Russian (glubinka) and the Hinterland lexeme in German as key ones; within the media image of the province key lexemes are provintsiia and Provinz. In the structure of the hinterland media image in both languages, nuclear and peripheral zones and their constituent groups of linguistic means are distinguished: adjectives (derived from horonyms); spatial qualifiers; units nominating the subject; descriptives; deictic units; constructions of opposition (within the framework of the opposition «center – not the center»), verbal units of various actions; constructions of negation. The paper establishes that the media image of the province, compared with the media image of the hinterland, is structured to a lesser extent in the factual material and is positioned mainly within the framework of the opposition «capital – province» (Russian), «city – province» (German), while the socio-cultural stereotyping of this image in the German language is noted. A certain pattern of the social exclusion and social inclusion actualization processes in media texts is revealed. In the Russian language, the media image of the hinterland in the texts of the central media reflects both the processes of social exclusion and inclusion (to a lesser extent); in the texts of regional media – mainly the processes of social inclusion. In German, the reflection of these processes is directly related to the designated territory. The article comes to a conclusion about the national and cultural coloring of the hinterland media image. In the Russian language, this image is characterized by ambivalence (static, problematic / “Russianness”, authenticity, cultural potential). In the German language, the national and cultural specificity of the media image is due to the geographical and spatial location of the territory described.