Some specific features of stereotypization of negative aspects of the authorities’ image

The purpose of the research. The research is aimed at identifying specific features of the process through which stereotypes influencing the image of the authority as perceived by the society, in particular, by the legal community, are formed and manifest themselves. The Mass Media play an essential role in fixing and multiplying the stereotypes that people have about state bodies and key directions of their activity. The authors have undertaken to specify and illustrate unintentional negativization of the authority’s image deriving from neutral informative publications in the Mass Media as a result of frequent use of words naming negative and undesirable aspects of the state bodies and structures’ activity. The research that has been based on Mass Media publications has focused mainly on verbal representation of the already formed stereotypes and relied heavily on the results of the association experiment with the involvement of legal community members. According to the authors, identifying patterns of how negative stereotypes of the authority at large and its specific bodies and structures are formed may lay the foundation for further solutions aimed at neutralizing the Mass Media’s negative effect. Conclusions. The results of the research lead to the conclusion that in some cases ordinary consciousness reflects unintentional negativization of the authority’s image as a result of frequent use of words verbalizing negative and undesirable aspects of the state bodies and structures’ activity. It is deemed rational to further develop strategies meant to minimize and neutralize the Mass Media’s damaging effect taking into account the results of the research. It is regarded desirable to work out recommendations for higher education syllabus that would help counterbalance possible negative influence through strengthening students’ trust to the authority. The methodology and method of the research. The commonly accepted dialectical method of studying societal processes and social and legal phenomena as well as their interconnection and interdependence has been used as the methodological basis for the research aimed at determining the ways through which stereotypes that influence the image of the authority come into existence. Alongside the dialectical method, the following private scientific methods have been applied: the formal logical method helping to study the notion, essence and significance of the negative stereotypes; association experiment based on a social research and carried out in the form of an interview that has helped to reveal reactions to the stimulus word; content analysis of the Mass Media materials.

the image of the authority, mass media materials, stereotypization, associative and verbal net