Pavlenko A. Ukrainian football image: the peculiarities of formation and detection in the modern domestic media

The study is devoted to the definition of peculiarities of the independent Ukraine football image formation and detection in the modern domestic media. At first, the term of "country's football image" is conceptualized, its sociocommunicative essence is defined and its structural model is developed. The defining image characteristics of a football player, coach, referee, fan, football club, football organization, match, tournament, and a single result are detected. The study found the role of media and mass media opinion leaders in the country's football image forming. One determines the main stages of forming of Ukrainian internal football image mass-media means. It was revealed that the specificity of the country's football internal image is determined by the sociohistorical context and the peculiarities of the football image media coverage, including the mass media opinion leaders' communication activities. The analysis of the football media-content allowed us to determine the communicative portraits of personified, collective and event Ukraine's football image in the modern media and to reveal the communicative techniques of its formation. One offers the recommendations for the Ukrainian journalists on the use of the communicative techniques to form a positive internal country's image in the football events coverage.