Image Actualization of the First Lady Within the Framework of Image Stereotyping of the President in the Media (Exemplified by the 43rd and 45th US Presidents and Their Wives)

Abstract

This article aims to reveal the specifics of the actualization of the family image within the framework of image stereotyping of a politician in mass media. For several decades, mass media discourse has been paying special attention to the personal lives of political leaders and opinion leaders, satisfying the needs of readers eager to learn what they are like in everyday life and personal relationships. This study provides a definition of the concept of a politician’s communicative behaviour, shaping his speech portrait, which is to a large extent formed through the media. The speech portrait is made up of the politician’s rhetoric (either conservative or liberal) implemented in public speeches. At the same time, a politician’s image often depends on mass media, more precisely, on their attitude towards him/her, the narration about the politician’s family playing an important role in this. The empirical material of this study includes newspaper articles of the English-language periodicals The Guardian and Politico from 2009–2020, writing about the presidents Donald Trump and George W. Bush and their family members. These periodicals are of interest due to their political orientation, within the framework of which the images of these politicians and their family members are shaped. Turning to comparative analysis, the author identified the relationship between a politician’s image and the representation of his family members in the press. In addition, discourse analysis was used, logically supplemented with linguoculturological and sociopragmalinguistic modelling of communicative interaction. The research found that mass media discourse presents the politicians’ family life through the representation of their wives, often with gender stereotyping. Moreover, there is a clear process of delimiting the spouses in newspaper discourse, i.e. the image of a politician does not always affect the image of his wife, which means that they are viewed independently from each other.

For citation: Gasanov B.V. Image Actualization of the First Lady Within the Framework of Image Stereotyping of the President in the Media (Exemplified by the 43rd and 45th US Presidents and Their Wives). Vestnik Severnogo (Arkticheskogo) federal’nogo universiteta. Ser.: Gumanitarnye i sotsial’nye nauki, 2021, vol. 21, no. 3, pp. 27–36. DOI: 10.37482/2687-1505-V100