The concept of AMERICA in news media headlines: a dynamic aspect

This study aims to identify the directions in which media speech develops as a way of realizing the author’s intention to create a target image across different historical periods (using the concept of AMERICA as an example, which is closely linked in the mind of the Russian language speaker with the image of the United States of America). The article examines news materials from the socio-political weekly “Argumenty i Fakty” (Arguments and Facts) from 1983 and 2023 related to the topic of the USA, and conducts their comparative-historical and functional-stylistic analysis. The scientific novelty of the study lies in the fact that, for the first time, using the material of news headlines, it identifies the ways in which the conceptual image of America as an enemy state and as a partner state is formed during different historical periods with the help of linguistic means at various levels. As a result of applying a transdisciplinary approach, it was established that the media texts of the weekly “Argumenty i Fakty” from 1983 and 2023 (these periods were chosen for analysis due to the similarity of geopolitical relations between our state and the United States of America during the specified times) have significantly transformed, both quantitatively and in terms of content: with a thousandfold increase in news materials, their function has changed (from informing about an event to reporting on a specific fact concerning the event and/or clarifying details of the event); the realization of persuasiveness and evaluativeness, characteristic of media texts of any historical period, is carried out using different linguistic means; a shift from metaphorization to metonymization has been revealed.