The role of media framing in creating political narratives and public opinion based on English-language mass media texts

Modern mass media play a key role in shaping public opinion, especially in conditions of high political polarization. One of the main tools of media influence is framing, a strategy of presenting information through certain semantic frameworks that set some interpretation of events. The study focuses on the types of frames and the way they are used by English-language mass media, by CNN in particular, to create political narratives. Based on two articles from CNN devoted to protests against the policies of the Donald Trump administration and migration crisis, the key tools for framing are identified and their role in creating political narratives is analyzed. The study shows that media texts not only inform the audience but also shape its opinion setting certain frameworks for interpreting events. Discourse analysis served the main research method. Macro- and microstructural features of the textes of the articles were found. At the micro level lexical and phraseological means, key lexemes, collocations, evaluative constructions (for example, adverbs and attributive phrases) were analyzed. At the macro level the structure and composition of the texts as a whole are studied. The main conlusion of the study is that the media use a wide range of frames to create political narratives and shape public opinions. The identified frames were compared with the typology proposed by S. Iyengar, H.A. Semetko, P.M. Valkenburg, D. Chong, J.N. Druckman and others. In the CNN article devoted to protest actions is dominated by thematic, moral and conflict frames as well as elements of empthatic framing seen in the emphasis of the consequences of political decisions and emotionally charges expressions. This approach contributes to the narrative of a confrontation between civil society and authoritarian tendencies, which reflects characteristic values of CNN. The CNN article on the migrant crisis builds the narrative around the theme of human rights violations, abuse of power and the crisis of separation of powers. Here, the emphatic, moral and human interest frames activated.

frame, framing, political narrative, media discourse, strategy, public opinion, discourse analysis, microlevel, macrolevel, lexical and phraseological means