Using Claw Back Technology In Economic News On Social Media

Research overview

The discursive logic of communicative message constructing in media content, especially one that presupposes interactivity, that is, immediate commenting, is of interest to researchers in many aspects. The subject of the present study is the media logic of economic news presentation in social media (Welbers & Opgenhaffen, 2019), techniques and technologies for manipulating public consciousness, political and communication strategies in various types of media discourse (Amineva, 2018; Ruzhentseva, 2018), provocative strategies in the headline complex of a media text (Frolova, 2018) and the communicative risks of applying emotiogenic headlines (Lukashevich, 2019), user reactions to the content commentators impoliteness (Kalch & Naab, 2017), peculiarities of adolescents' communicative behavior in social networks (Bernados et al., 2019); the impact of collective emotions of media content consumers on their behavioral intentions and on the perception of the meaning of news (Myrick & Wojdynski, 2016). The present research's attention is also attracted by the peculiarities of user interaction when discussing the media content of online media communities (Gurin et al., 2017; Vyrovtseva & Ivanova, 2020). It is noted that the media create a virtual space where new discursive practices emerge, constructing social reality (Kalinkin, 2016; Kozhemjakin, 2016). Speech models and media discourse strategies are becoming a separate section of media research (Znak: problemnoe pole mediaobrazovanija – http://journals.csu.ru/index.php/znak/sections). Special attention is carried to various means of reader perception manipulating, for example, visualization techniques (Simakova, 2017; 2019). The discursive practice of commenting online media content has systematically turned to be the subject of our research (Labutina & Topchii, 2019; 2020).

Claw back

Within the framework of the present study, the research object is claw back technology as a means of manifesting the discursive logic of a journalistic communicative message, expecting a reader's response, reaction, and comment. It is remarkable that the term claw back itself characterizes the perception of eastern (Japanese) advertising in research on the history of advertising (Bushev, 2019; Matveeva & Danilova, 2000) and is “borrowed” in the present study to describe a similar way of engaging consumers of media content and managing the perception of news content.

Claw back technology as a communicative method of influence through engagement in news headlines and comments

The communicative style practiced by the journalists of the liberal opposition publication Meduza Novosti and SMI (Meduza Novosti and Mass Media), which is under consideration, can be described as "cunning", "provocative", and "manipulative". As it is, a headline simulates the reader's reaction, sets the assessment of the event being described, creates a trend of its future discussion in the comments, and makes the comments content predictable. For example (the spelling and punctuation of the authors are hereinafter preserved):

Headline: How come? The head of the Russian Ministry of Internal Affairs does not find any crime in Navalny's poisoning (How come? The head of the Russian Ministry of Internal Affairs does not find any crime in Navalny's poisoning, 2020).

Comments:

Commentator 1: Years ago, at least somehow, they concealed their crimes, but now everything is so plain and obvious, the Kremlin does not find any evidence, basis, for a criminal case!

Commentator 2: There is a thin line between the Ministry of Internal Affairs and crime. Or rather there is not

Commentator 3: Sure thing! A budget is allocated for the poisoning, and specialists are involved. Bonuses, medals, stars for shoulder straps are hand over solemnly.

The ‘claw is retracted’, it sheathed, according to the rules known to both the author of the headline and commentators who ‘catch a ball in the air’ and play the game of comprehending any news according to a well-known scenario, exchanging a ‘smile of augurs’:

Another headline is by Vedomosti: the family of Minister Manturov owns a five-star hotel in the center of Moscow (The family of Minister Manturov owns a five-star hotel in the center of Moscow, 2020).

Comments:

Commentator 4: once again, my retired mother deprived herself and kept every coin ...

Commentator 5: And I also have six acres, but I would not refuse an oil rig or mine. Is it from the house? Where do you get that?

Commentator 6: Commentator 5, do you have a son? Is he a minister?

Commentator 5: No. I don’t have a minister-son, I don’t even have a voucher, and I don’t have a Volga brand car, as the privatizers promised, but the consequences of the shock therapy in the economy remained neither oil, nor gas, nor diamond pipes, nor real estate abroad ... No garbage business .... Dead in the water. Totally.

Commentator 7: Who is surprised by this? We have already reached such a level that such ‘news’ are not news and cannot cause any reaction other than apathy. We are ruled by an organized criminal group, they own 95% of the resources, the rest are just serfs who pay tribute.

The considered communication technology is appropriate and possible in the discursive practice of commenting on network media content mainly because the participants in the discussion are like-minded people, people of the same type, adhering to similar human values ​​and political views, professing the same principles. This makes possible not only direct (negative, as a rule) assessments of what is happening, but also a kind of complication of these assessments through mockery, humor and hints that are understandable to ‘friends’, like private jokes, for example:

Headline: According to Lukashenko, Belarusian intelligence intercepted an ‘interesting conversation’ between Germany and Poland, from which it followed that there was no poisoning of Navalny (Lukashenko: "There was no poisoning of Navalny", 2020)

Comments:

Commentator 8: Yah! ... Furgal has already owed a crime of driving Efremov's car on their way to poison Navalny. It's all over! Dismiss a case)))

Commentator 9: Secondhand embarrassment! But they have no clue.

Headline: The German government called Lukashenko's statement about adulteration of Navalny's poisoning fake (The German government called Lukashenko's statement about adulteration of Navalny's poisoning fake, 2020)

Comments:

Commentator 10: Batka grabs at any straw. Soon he will tell that he intercept a conversation between Bill Gates and Soros about chipping and homosexualization of the Belarusian and Russian protesters. Well, Navalny is a reptilian who knows how to hibernate and imitate someone. 2020, you are the best!

Headline: The wife of TV presenter Sergei Brilev received British citizenship (The wife of TV presenter Sergei Brilev received British citizenship, 2020)

Comments:

Commentator 11: I don’t understand why they still don’t adopt a law according to which any state official and deputy can have any number of citizenships, but with the idea that the most important thing is to love Russia! Well, and, of course, come up with an oath there…

Often headlines are composed in such a way that they cannot but provoke indignation and ‘righteous anger’ of the reader, since they contain direct or indirect indications of injustice, violation of common sense, laws or universal norms, which must inevitably be eliminated and symbolically destroyed in ‘appropriate’ society of like-minded commentators. Examples:

Headline: Russian schoolchildren will study online and on vacations due to September three-day elections (Russian schoolchildren will study online and on vacations due to September three-day elections, 2020)

Comments:

Commentator 12: Why are elections still held in schools ??? Why shouldn't children learn normally because of this! It seems that everything connected with education in our country is now being methodically destroyed! No comments....

Commentator 13: As long as the parents are silent, the education system will be destroyed. Well, or whatever is left. Almost three months only online, vacation and there we go again .... great.

Commentator 14: How come? After all, there are a lot of places like luggage racks, benches at the entrances, garbage cans, trash cans, finally! Pick any you like.

Commentator 15: They do not care about people and their children. The main thing is to drag united rusShit through at least some way. Otherwise, the corruption system will collapse.

Commentator 16: WTF? Is this bloody three-ring circus more of a value than education?

Commentator 17: Elections and voting are the main sanitary and epidemic control events of the year

Headline: Belarus has sent an application to Russia to refinance its state debt for $ 600 million (Belarus has sent an application to Russia to refinance its state debt for $ 600 million, 2020)

Comments:

Commentator 18: The Kremlin also takes batka's apparatus for rations. Russian taxpayers are no stranger to!

Commentator 19: Meanwhile, we have to sequester the budget, and on the most socially-friendly items: education, health care and housing and communal services.

Commentator 20: Let's drop, f'sho)))

Commentator 21: In one’s usual manner, one has to buy brothers ...)))

Commentator 22: can all citizens (Russians) get refinanced all the debts first???

Commentator 23: Sure, we are to help the outgoing dictators. If not us, who?

Commentator 24: It means that utility bills are raised every 3-6 months, and the Bloody, that tortures people and children, is given billions!

Commentator 25: We have a lot of extra money.

Commentator 26: Big Russian heart at your service))) We will help

Thus, the provocation of negative emotions in readers, associated with any unacceptable situation, its inconsistency with readers' supposed ideas about 'unacceptable', 'appropriate', and 'correct’, is a particular case of applying the claw back technology in the discursive practice under analysis.

Resistance to claw back manipulative technology in the discursive practice of network media content commenting

The discursive logic under consideration may be violated, not respected by commentators if they have reason to accuse the headline authors of open manipulation, the desire to force readers to join the proposed interpretation of events, and communicative violence. Too transparent bias of the authors does not go unnoticed and arouses the indignation of commentators, which is expressed up to the metalanguage level, discussing not the news itself, but the way it is presented through the headline. For example:

Headline: The Higher School of Economics has stopped cooperation with the philologist Hasan Huseynov (The Higher School of Economics has stopped cooperation with the philologist Hasan Huseynov, 2020)

The specious neutrality of the title, which seems only to convey an objective fact, does not deceive readers who are familiar with the context, the circumstances of several of Huseynov's statements about the ‘cloaca’ Russian language of some public figures, as well as terrorism. Considering the nuances, the subtext of the headline (Huseynov is justly punished) is absolutely obvious to the readers, hence the position of the publication, which is thus imposed on the reader. The comments expose such manipulation when an opinion is mixed with a fact.

Commentator 27: The headline is in the spirit of Solovyov, absolutely. Congratulations! I rarely comment anything like this, but this one is disgusting.

Commentator 28: No need to distort, he was not talking about the Russian language in general, but only about its current state

Commentator 29: Wow! Meduza, there hasn't been such a (...) headline for a long time.

Commentator 30: He was speaking not about the language, but about the level of literacy. You didn't get that either ...

Commentator 31: Hmm, Medusa has completely become a cloaca.

Commentator 32: You are manipulating! Phew!

Commentator 33: Meduza, knock it off! No more crap headlines!

Commentator 34: Lies: he was speaking about the current state of the literacy!

Commentator 35: That's true about what they said, Medusa (...) does not despise anything.

The considered cases of violation of the discursive logic of constructing a communicative message are examples of non-cooperative speech behavior designed to constantly regulate the relations between the publication and readers, each time to clarify the rules of their interaction, to regularly renegotiate previously adopted conventions, for example, on the inadmissibility of open speech manipulation of the readers' opinion.