Representation of the Notional Component of the Concept “Metaverse” in the Journalistic Genre (Based on Corpus Data)

Abstract

The article studies the new concept of metaverse in the journalistic genre based on the data of the constantly growing NOW corpus (News on the Web). The purpose of the article is to identify the notional component of the concept under study and its cognitive features as realized in the journalistic genre in the language of mass media. Based on the attributive and predicative cooccurrence of the keyword, cognitive features of the concept are singled out and united into thematic groups. The total of these features describes the notional component of this concept. In the course of the study, the most frequent and significant thematic groups were identified, these are “control”, “growth”, “evolvement” and “functionality”. The semantics of growth and incompleteness suggests that the metaverse is not yet a fully defined concept but is only at the beginning of its development and explication. Cognitive features in the thematic group “functionality” have the semantics components of “help” and “instrument”, which emphasizes the perception of metaverse as a kind of a means or a tool. The main concern of the society is expressed in the thematic group “control” with the key cognitive feature “decentralized”, which reflects the need to prevent the monopolization of this new and rapidly developing sphere of human activity. During the study of this concept in the media discourse, the following features were identified: openness and accessibility of the “metaverse”, its rapid development, digital character, verisimilitude. Negative assessments of the metaverse are associated with dystopian scenarios, while positive ones describe it as something popular, attractive, and even seductive. The functionality of the metaverse in the journalistic genre is associated with the idea of helping people implement their desires, overcome limitations, socialize, and develop business.