Celebrity gossip as a genre in English-language mass media discourse

The multidimensionality of rumours as part and parcel of mass communication has stipulated the research in their linguistic nature. The present paper studies this specific communication phenomenon and the discursive practices by means of which it is realized across the Anglophone mass media discourse continuum. The theory of discourse-analysis underpinning the present paper predetermines an integrative approach with various methods employed. This approach makes it possible to gain an insight into the complex nature of the object under study. The research is targeted at media rumours, namely celebrity gossip, manifested in on-line versions of the printed press and original web outlets in 2015-2018. The main goal of the research is to reveal specific features of media rumors as a speech genre in the Anglophone media communication. Celebrity gossip texts make up the empiric material for the present study. This aim is achieved via the description of the content and form of the text-type structure supplemented by an application of stylistic analysis. In terms of the topics, the findings demonstrate a wide variety of topoi comprising both public (social interactions) and private spheres of celebrities’ life with an emphasis on privacy, sensationalism and scandalous impropriety as dominant discursive characteristics of the text-type samples under study. The structure of the celebrity gossip discourse is represented by texts in different journalistic forms: from informative genres to feature type variations used by authors as means of constructing celebrity culture. The information of trivial content and questionable validity because of its unverified character is disguised as reports of high testimonial trustworthiness and epistemic value with the help of a variety of language and textual resources. The results of the study enable us to argue that within the mass media communication there exists a specific discourse which is hybrid by nature and non-evidential by verification.