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MIKHAIL BAKHTIN’S DIALOGISM IN MEDIA COMMUNICATION

Sandra Veinberg

Abstract

The method of dialogue analysis to be used in relation to a literary text as proposed by the Russian linguist, Mikhail Bakhtin, can be used in media communications research. His dialogism comes in handy in the analysis of mass communications processes, especially for the purpose of establishing why the same fact or event is interpreted differently in reports by various media sources. The advantage of heteroglossia as defined by Bakhtin is that it allows us to look at changes that are made to the same report after it has been published in the media of various countries in several languages. Media texts are a form of rhetoric that display centripetal and centrifugal forces of ideas and, therefore, the language of communication is saturated with ideology, something that was particularly visible in public discussions during the #MeToo campaign. The discussion of the #MeToo civic movement in the media of various countries (in 2017-2018) displayed the same processes that were defined by Mikhail Bakhtin, the founder of dialogism theory, back in 1929 in his book ‘Problems with Dostoevsky’s Poetics’. Specifically, any interpretation of opinion in a text is not only a consequence of media dissemination but is mainly a result of defects in understanding an alien language, as detected by Bakhtin, and a lack of authoritative discourse. A broader use of Bakhtin’s dialogism in media research may also offer a better level of understanding of the principles of generating what is euphemistically termed as ‘fake news’, and could also generate more opportunities to reduce the informative pollution of the public domain.

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DOI resolver: doi.org/10.5593/sgemsocial2019V/2.1/S10.030

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