MODELING POSITIVE IMAGE OF AN ATHLETE IN UKRAINIAN MEDIA AS A MEANS OF SPREADING SPORTS CULTURE VALUES

The article describes peculiarities of verbalization of athlete's image in sports analytical articles. Particularly, it reveals the image, which is acceptable and desirable for Ukrainian society in order to establish correlation of this image with universal moral values, promoted by sports community through mass media. Reconstruction of the conceptual image of a positive personality identity in sports field is made in a semantic perspective through the analysis of verbalization of positive characteristics of successful athletes in the Ukrainian language. It serves as a means of creating a prototype conceptual scheme of this field, i.e. SPORT IS ACTIVITY, focusing on the importance of not only motor activity in professional sports, but also athlete’s active social position. Moreover, physical qualities turn to be fundamental and serve as a basis for implementation of social ones. Moreover, revealing typical moral traits and social qualities of athletes, explicated in sports analytical articles, suggests that they are the basic moral values of mankind for many centuries (from the time of Aristotle to the present day). It is also important to add that among all socially determined values, such ethical norms as justice, honesty, equality, and respect are the most relevant for the sports world. However, in sports analytical articles, they are presented implicitly, which is due to general perception of an athlete as a priori responsible, that is, someone who always respects the rules of competition. Further research of suggested issue should contribute to identification of ways to how involve various social groups in sports as a means of expressing their values.