Axiological Potential of Military Journalist’s Emotional Intelligence in Media Discourse

The relevance of the research is caused by the global cognitive war launched against Russia in the modern world, which is connected with the military actions in Ukraine. The article presents the linguocultural characteristic of the emotional intelligence of a military journalist covering a special military operation. We emphasize the conditionality of emotional intelligence by value priorities of a war correspondent. This study aims to identify axiological constants of the military journalist’s emotional intelligence represented in media discourse. The method we applied involved linguocultural analysis as well as axiological approach and cognitive analysis ‒ decoding the key semantic constructs of the text as a refl ection of the author’s linguistic personality’s intention to interpret reality, taking into account the national picture of the world. The empirical foundation in the study was media discourse of the online publications Argumenty i Fakty, Komsomolskaya Pravda and Pravda.ru. The fi ndings of the study are based on more than 250 publications between the years 2022 and 2024 by such journalists as Dmitry Grigor’ev, Aleksander Kots, Dmitry Steshin, Daria Aslamova, Yulia Andrienko. The emotional intelligence of a journalist is viewed as the ability to identify one’s own and others’ emotions within the context of comprehending and interpreting them, managing and applying them in professional activities, considering the national interests of the country, adhering to traditional values. The results obtained show that in the dominant information fl ow we can reveal the following values determining the axiological vector of a military journalist’s emotional intelligence: responsibility for one’s actions, mutual assistance, selfl essness and courage, patriotism and unity with the traditions of the people, love for life and other people (optimism), faith in victory and just retribution. Such values as honesty and sincerity, empathy and sensitivity, and mercy to the enemy are as well represented, although not so often. No fundamental gender differences in the axiology of media discourse of women and men war correspondents were revealed. However, in women’s content artistic and journalistic techniques are more vividly presented. The prevalence of traditional values in media discourse determines its popularity among consumers as bearers of historical memory. The prospects of the research include the development of algorithms or technologies for creating a media text with the resources of the national picture of the world.