Correlation of the private and public in the genre of the reader comment

The article deals with the analysis of reader comments in American media discourse to identify the signs of privacy and publicity in this genre. The relevance of the study of reader comments is due to their significant role in the formation of the public sphere. With the rapid development of the digital technologies and social platforms, the genre of the reader comment has become an important channel for leading public discussions on vital topics and expressing personal opinions, which causes the problem of delineating the private and public in the genre under study. The research was conducted using reader comments on articles published in the online edition of “New York Times” during August and September 2024. The methods employed included: observation, description, contextual analysis, interpretation, and quantitative counting techniques. The study examines the definition, key characteristics, and functions of reader comments. The analysis was aimed at the following aspects: user identity, language style, the use of emojis and symbols, forms of address, comment topics, and lexical markers of publicity and privacy. The following signs of privacy were identified: anonymity in username selection, the use of language typical of spoken speech, the use of emojis, reduced communication distance, sharing personal information and expressing emotions in comments, addressing the author of the article or one of the commentators, and lexical markers such as I, my, me. Signs of publicity include: providing the user’s real name, posting on general topics, addressing a broad audience, highlighting important social issues, and employing lexical markers such as park, people, we. 

the private, the public, speech genre, reader comment, communicative distance, media text, media discourse