Journalism Section at the 43rd RSACS Conference

Modern media culture is comprehensive, responding to the basic mass audience need in entertainment. The entertainment component is actively being introduced into the different spheres of media space, transforming traditional media formats. American journalism provides a lot of materials for analyzing various manifestations of comic forms. We could mention the musical and humorous program “Saturday Night Live” on the NBC channel, parodying political elite and received a TV Emmy award this year.

In the “Journalism” section 7 reports were made (out of 9 applications). Several reports were devoted to the genre peculiarity of the embodiment of the comic. Karine Chobanyan turned to the satiric rubric “RedicuList” of the information program “Anderson Cooper 360” on the CNN channel and defined it as an “informational feuilleton”. Svetlana Kanashina settled on the genre nature of popular Internet memes. She stressed the syncretic: textual and graphic components that outplaying the cliches of the American mass consciousness.

In the center of the next two reports was the figure of the USA President Donald Trump. Elena Pavlova emphasized the following important point: Trump appearance on the political arena marked a departure from the discourse of political correctness prevailing over the past decades. Annihilating irony and sarcasm were played a special role in departing from this established practice of public internal political polemics. In the Valery Terin message there was a thought that through Twitter Trump proposed a new type of electronic communication, different from the linear sequence of typographic culture.

The Nikolai Zykov report filled the usually vacant niche. It was dedicated to the “The Voice of America” broadcasting, combining literary and political humor.

Finally, two more reports were devoted to the print press. It is noteworthy that the appeal to the press was brought to the historical context. Yekaterina Zagvozdkina spoke about the ironic coverage in the late 1950s and early 1960s press the image of the “broken generation”, who had denied traditions and social norms.

In Yuliya Balashova report were determined the main stages of the American almanacs evolution, with their satirical variety accentuation. American almanacs developed mainly within the framework of popular and mass culture, invariably retaining their calendar prototype. Such diverse presidents of the United States, like Franklin Roosevelt, and then Richard Nixon, addressed the satirical almanac-calendar form, for the purpose of political PR.

Galina Lapshina summed up a certain result, drawing attention to the points of convergence of American and Russian culture.

Yulia Balashova