The dissertation comprises a comprehensive picture of the key tendencies in
local processes of narrative reception of the Ternopil Region district print media of the
early 21st century, accompanied by a detailed analysis of their organizational basis,
problem and thematic and genre preferences, the peculiarities of local-based
components in the context of local press functioning in Ukraine. It is emphasized that
local press is a unique mass communication and socio-cultural phenomenon that
occupies an important part in the spiritual, social and political, historical and cultural
life of Ukraine.
District press, being a segment of local media, belongs to the sources of
information that are gaining extra importance nowadays, thus requiring a
comprehensive study.
The functioning, genre, and thematic peculiarities of local narrative of the
Ternopil Region district press of the early 21st century have been theoretically proven
and empirically confirmed in this paper. The author has defined the scientific and
methodological problems, characterized the notions and categories and explained the
definitions «local narrative» in this paper. The correlation between the peculiarities of
local press materials and top social and political events in Ukraine, as well as the stages
of this correlation and the practice of local content mediation have been established in
this scientific work. We have defined and analyzed the local narratives, identified their
genre features, the peculiarities of rubrication and personalization of local publications,
described their problematic and thematic content.
The empirical basis of this research is represented by 14 169 issues of local
Ternopil region newspapers («Berezhanske viche», «Halytskyi visnyk», «Nova doba»,
«Visnyk Nadzbruchchya», «Kolos», «Narodne slovo», «Zborivska dzvinytsya»,
«Vilne slovo», «Dialog», «Holos Lanovechchyny», «Visti Prydnistrovya», «Homin
voli», «Zemlya Pidhayetska», «Volia», «Podilske slovo», «Holos narodu», «Novyny
Shumshchyny») published in 2000‒2015. We have singled out the local-themed
publications, studied their narrative nature, and classified them according to the key
thematic categories and genre forms of their presentation.
The introduction comprises the thematic justification of this research, its aim and
tasks, the object and subject of research, its novelty and practical relevance of results.
Chapter I «Theoretical and methodological fundamentals of studying local
narrative in the context of social communications» deals with the analysis of available
scientific findings in this field, its sources and theoretical and methodological basis of
research.
In the sub-chapter «District press as an object of scientific research» we have
analyzed journalism studies dealing with district press, classified other sources
dedicated to the history of district press studies, as well as comprehensive works on the
history of journalism studies in Ukraine; Ukrainian and foreign researchers’ works on
the role of local mass media in the context of other types of media, monographs and
dissertations on the history of periodicals, researches on the activity of Ukrainian print
press in the Halychyna area.
As a result of historiographical analysis, presented in the subchapter
«Theoretical and methodological aspects of research» the notion, the semantic field of
notions the place and role of the term “narrative” in the system of social
communications and journalism have been identified. It is stated that narrative is the
textual actualization of history that comprises three basis dimensions: semantic
(history); mental (the representation of the world of history) and discourse dimension
(the form and style of communication). Based on the modern Ukrainian and foreign
researchers’ works we have clarified that the term «narrative» is contextually related
to the notions «story», «history», «discourse», «interpretation», «plot».
It has been established that the key term of the conceptual and categorical
paradigm of local media narrative is the local content, represented by the connection
between the past, the present and the future. Local content is the thematic and topical
content of a certain local text that presupposes the representation of different sorts of
information: history, geography, literature, archaeology, ethnography, culture, etc.
The subchapter «Media representation of local studies» contains the analysis of
specialized editions, the activities of organizations and establishments facilitating the
media representation of local studies in the Ternopil region district press. It is stated
that their research resulted in the publication of deep historical and local lore studies
reflecting in one way or another social, political and media sources of local history
studies of Ternopil region.
