Political Stereotype in the Process of Political Communication

Abstract

The dynamic development of various information technologies, the formation of a single information space, the spread of modern high-tech tools that provide constant access to communication channels attracts the attention of scientists today to political communication and its impact on the political consciousness and political behavior of citizens. The diverse information that a person receives through numerous political communication channels contributes to the formation of stereotypes, simplifying the representation through the imposition of stamps, attributing to other people, groups, phenomena certain qualities, images that this being or group in our imagination and consciousness possesses, but which they may not possess or do not possess in the real environment. Consideration of stereotypes is associated with the study of the phenomenon of stereotyping as a process of reducing concepts to stereotypes. Stereotyping in modern socio-political conditions is advisable to study through the political stereotype as a component of political consciousness and political culture. In order to understand the mechanisms of political stereotype formation, it is necessary to consider logical, cognitive and associative thinking. Stereotyping is successful when there is a continuous cognitive genesis of the audience, the process of accumulation in the mass consciousness of appropriately organized information, as well as the accumulation of necessary social attitudes. Cognitive genesis leads to the assimilation of both the content elements and the necessary logical and linguistic operations with these elements. The most important of the mechanisms of political stereotype formation is the mechanism of causal attribution – the attribution to objects of properties that they do not have due to causal deficit – lack of reliable information. Political messages – elements of political communication – play an important role in the deficit or vice versa excess of information. Circulating in the communication system, the message is formed in the minds of citizens simplified representations, which eventually transform into stereotypes. Thus, the political stereotype becomes a tool of manipulation in the process of political communication. The communication environment accustoms a person to the existence of an abstract “other”, against which a template is built, saturated with verbal images – a new environment for the formation of political stereotypes as the simplest way to influence the political consciousness of the citizen.

Keywords: political stereotype, political communication, communication channels, information, stereotyping.