Stereotypic image of Siberia in Russian mass media

The article studies theoretical aspects of the image of the region and their realization as exemplified by the image of Siberia. The article treats the structure of the image and mechanisms of its formation from the point of view of the cognitive approach and with the help of frame structures. The cognitive analysis enables to differentiate three levels: frame, subframes, and slots, pertaining to the entity explored. The research allows demonstrating that the stereotypical ideas play an essential role in forming and sustaining the images of regions. Mass media appear to be the main source of the stereotypic image of the region due to highlighting different facts concerning the sterotypicized phenomenon, selecting various linguistic means for featuring it and influencing the emotional and evaluative perception of the image. The study was based on the data of the National Corpus of the Russian Language, which were analyzed with the help of content analysis and frame analysis. The image of the Siberian region actively exploits the frames “Nature and Geography of Siberia”, “History of Siberia”, “Economy of Siberia”. The research found out the dynamic and ambivalent character of the stereotypic image of Siberia.


Introduction
The currently important part of modern Russian studies is the analysis of the images of the regions represented in different types of discourse, which is conditioned by the following: (1) the images of the regions are still poorly understood, and (2) the cognitive mechanisms of the regional image formation (by direct personal experience or indirectly, for example, via materials of mass media, Internet, eyewitnesses' stories, books, films, etc.) also need a description.
The images of the regions are formed largely under the influence of stereotyped ideas about a particular territory. Most people have an idea about the regions of this country and the world even before they directly encounter them in reality; such stereotypes are being formed under the influence of an individual's sociocultural environment and allow one "to comprehend the world as a whole, thus going beyond the framework of one's narrow social, geographical, and political environment" [1].

Material and methods
Stereotypes are stable units of consciousness, which are often handed down from generation to generation; they facilitate the automatic thinking and phenomena evaluating. The term "stereotype" was introduced into the scientific use by U. Lippmann in 1922 in his book "Public Opinion" and is defined as "... a simplified, preconceived notion that does not result from one's own experience" [2]. Consequently, stereotypes arise in an indirect way. There are three stages of stereotype formation: alignment, i.e. reduction of the object to several characteristic features; strengthening, i.e. assigning a special significance to these identified characteristics; assimilation, i.e. the choice of aligned and strengthened features to construct an image that is meaningful for a person [3]. Such strengthened features do serve the basis in moulding stereotypic ideas about the region, in other words, they form its stereotypic image.
As a source of the stereotypic image of the region, in the first place we can point at the mass media that are responsible for frequent mentioning the region on their pages, describing its main features, selecting the newsworthy events to highlight, placing emphasis on information, choosing the linguistic means that have the strongest impact on the addressee, forming a certain emotional attitude to the region. The result of such mass media activities is the formation of a stereotypic media image of the region perceived by the addressees (readers, viewers, and listeners) as a kind of dogma, anchored in their minds and retransmitted later in business and everyday communication [4,5].
One of the most interesting in this respect is the image of Siberia, which is associated with a significant number of stereotypes [6][7][8][9][10][11]. Mass media played an essential role in the formation of these stereotypes.
The objective of the proposed study is to analyze stereotyped ideas about Siberia contained in the Russian media discourse of the 21 st century and to identify the linguistic means used by the media to form and transmit these stereotypes. The material of the study includes the texts of the Russian mass media of the 21 st century, presented in the National Corpus of the Russian Language. The main methods of the study were content analysis and frame analysis, which consist in presenting the stereotypic information about Siberia in the form of frames (knowledge structures) and their componentssubframes and slots [7,12].

Discussion
Examining Russian media texts has allowed explicating the frame-and-slot structure of the stereotypic media image of Siberia, created by the Russian mass media in the recent century; it has been established that the mass media extensively exploit the frames "Nature and Geography of Siberia", "History of Siberia", "Economy of Siberia".

Frame 1. "NATURE AND GEOGRAPHY OF SIBERIA"
Most frequently, Siberia's characterization in the Russian mass media is carried out by accentuating the unique natural and geographical peculiarities of the region.

Subframe 1. "Characteristics of the territory"
Within this framework, the Russian mass media focus readers' attention on the geographical position of the region, its remoteness from the administrative centre of the country and other countries, the large area of the region, its sparse population.

Subframe 2. "Climate"
This sub-frame in the analyzed material is the second in frequency. Siberia is traditionally considered as one of the coldest places in the world, a peculiar realm of frost, cold, ice, and snow. It should be noted that many representatives pointing to the climatic characteristics of Siberia are used in the plural form (for example, холода / colds, морозы / frosts, снега / snows, льды / ices, etc.), which indicates the frequency of such weather phenomena and their maximum degree of manifestation.

Subframe 3. "Natural and climatic zones"
Siberia stereotypically appears as a territory covered with dense forests, mostly coniferous (taiga); in some people's minds, Siberia and Taiga are synonyms to some extent: В

Frame 2. "HISTORY OF SIBERIA"
Characterizing Siberia, mass media regularly recall historical events, which made a significant impact on the region's future and influenced the formation of its image, and make references to the historical characters associated with the Siberian region in the minds of Russians.

Subframe 1. "Place of migration"
Relevant for the characteristics of Siberia is the idea of the region as a place where the inhabitants of other regions of Russia, who had come there as a result of migration (involuntary or voluntary), have been dominating over the indigenous population for a long time. Slot 1.1. "Place of exile". Despite the fact that since the 80s of the 20 th century, Siberia is no longer a place of exile, and according to the information from open sources, the number of prisons in Siberia is significantly fewer than the number of prisons in the European part of Russia, the image of Siberia as a place of exile has firmly fixed in the mind [7] and these stereotypes are quite alive so far: Ну и главное, чтобы создателей фильма в Сибирь не сослали (

Subframe 2. "Historical personalities"
Considering the history of Siberia, the media regularly mention historical personalities whose activities are relevant for the formation and development of the region.

Frame 3. "ECONOMY OF SIBERIA"
The stereotypes associated with the economy of Siberia are quite contradictory. The basis of the Siberian economy is the natural resources, the extraction and export of which the region is engaged in.

Subframe 1. "Natural resources"
Siberia is traditionally considered the largest resource center in Russia, which concentrates rich natural resources and minerals. In addition to explicating traditional ideas about Siberian riches, the Russian mass media are actively discussing a rather new problem -the problem of control over these resources and, consequently, the preservation of Siberia as a part of Russia. There is a concern about whether the inhabitants of the Siberian region, sufficiently well-off in resource terms, will be striving to separate into an independent economic and political entity: The analysis also demonstrated that the stereotypic image of Siberia is dynamic. The media reflect the stereotypes traditionally existing in the minds of a significant number of people (residents of other Russian regions and foreigners). They feature Siberia as a remote, vast region with a harsh climate, raw materials appendage of Russia rich in natural resources, which is also a place of exile and hard labour internally displaced people. At the same time, the Russian mass media are beginning to form a new stereotypic image of Siberia, an image of the region that is both a pledge for Russia's development and an object of claims from unfriendly countries.
Thus, the mass media are able not only to maintain and strengthen existing stereotypes about the region, but also to create and deliver new ones, forming a voluminous, multi-level stereotypical media image of Siberia, which is the starting point for further formation of the brand and image of the Siberian region.