Reader’s Commentary in Media in Media Network Discourse

The article considers the reader’s commentary in the media network discourse as a verbal reaction to a certain situation or some text. Functional-semantic and genre characteristics of reader’s comments are established. The material of the study includes media texts of readers’ comments in the modern Russian blogosphere. The work uses such research methods as descriptive method, discourse analysis method, contextual analysis, interpretive analysis, lexical-grammatical analysis, stylistic analysis. The main functions of the reader’s commentary are identified, including maintaining communication, refining information, its assessment qualifications, and self-expression. The fact is established that the dominant reaction of the reader is an assessment of the actual content of the material, support or criticism of the blogger and demonstration of his self, reduction of communicative distance. A functional portrait of the reader’s language personality in media-network discourse is offered. The main topics offered by bloggers that attract the Russian readership are revealed: current social problems, historical facts, literary stories, environmental issues, the impact of technological progress on the development of humankind. As a result of the study, it was found that when discussing the factual content of blogs, readers show their interest in the topic, ironic tonality dominates in self-expression. The scientific novelty of the study is that the linguistic features of the reader’s commentary in the media-network discourse are revealed. The study contributes to the development of discursive linguistics, media linguistics, genristics, influence theory, language personality theory. In the future, it is planned to consider the reader’s commentary in the media-network discourse in different linguocultures using the corpus method and quantitative analysis, as well as within the framework of the semiotic approach.