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Политика визуализации и визуализация политиков: медиарепрезентации кандидатов на пост Президента РФ в 2018 году
The paper discusses the principal strategies and means for visualization of candidates for the President of the Russian Federation during the electoral campaign-2018. The authors claim the multimodal nature of media texts, that is the meaning structures are constructed and transmitted by means of the whole set of representational tools, both verbal and non-verbal. Referring to the cases of three different Russian media (RIA Novosti, RBK and The Insider) the paper claims that the selection of visualization means is motivated by the informational policy of a medium, while the usage of them contributes to transmit the additional (evaluative, connotative) meanings which can develop the semiotic potential of the verbal part of media texts. The verbal part of the news text is predominately neutral and is in the informational genre, since visual elements vary from edition to edition and they transmit the additional, i. e. connotative, evaluative meanings. The authors claim that defining the content of such parameters as the distance, angle, gaze, association with the social group, evaluation, normativity, contributes to revealing the various strategies of visualization of candidates. In the research, such strategies are described as visual dissociation, visualization of activity and authority, ironization, emotionalization, ordinary visualization, etc. These strategies differ both in formal and pragmatic features. Visualization strategies are also motivated by the communicators’ intentions to construct the certain image of a political actor. Thus, ordinary visualization and visualization of activity and authority lead to construct the positively marked image, while the ironization and dissociation aim at constructing a rather negative image. The authors conclude that visual means of multimodal texts possess the significant semiotic resource and potential to construct the definite image of the represented politician.