The Image of the Arctic in Modern Russian Mass Media

The article presents an overview of scientific publications on the theme diversity and conceptual content of the Russian-language mass media texts about the Arctic; semantic dominants are listed and the peculiarities of their linguistic expression in these texts about the region are determined. The list of thematic dominants, previously interpreted by researchers, has been supplemented by one more concerning the need for the application of intellectual resources and creativity in relation to the development of the Arctic. Lexical units that represent this issue are enumerated. Some metaphors and metaphorical models representing the image of the Arctic in mass media (anthropomorphic, sociomorphic, naturomorphic, artifact) are identified; the gastronomic metaphorical model is described in more detail, the linguistic units relevant to the model (predicate and attributive) are analyzed, some additional typical situations related to the gastronomic metaphor in the theme field «Arctic Exploration» are mentioned. The use of linguistic research methods (contextual, conceptual, propositional analysis, as well as the method of cognitive modeling) allowed us to conclude about the actualization of two evaluation vectors in mass media: vectors of humane, careful, reasonable and creative attitude to the Arctic – on the one hand, pragmatic, consumption – on the other.