Mainstream Media, Journalistic Genres, and Word Categories
Mainstream Media and Objectives
The current mainstream media includes the press, radio, television, and the internet. It has three major objectives: to inform and disseminate news, to form or broadcast an opinion, and to entertain and amuse.
Journalistic Genre: The News
The essence of the journalistic genre is information, specifically news. News concerns a recent event.
Typographic Column
A typographic column is a section of text divided by a white line from top to bottom.
Criteria for Making an Announcement
Criteria for making an announcement include proximity, relevance, rarity, and human interest.
Structural Elements of a Story
Structural elements of a story include the headline or title (which may be accompanied by an antetítulo and subtitle, acting as a selector of information and trying to arouse the reader’s interest), and the entradilla, which collects the six main questions.
Body of Information and Style
The body of information details the elements of the entradilla, following the structure of the inverted pyramid. Direct style consists of reproducing the words of someone else entirely and unmodified.
Subgenres of Information
Other subgenres of information include: news reports (narratives by a journalist on a subject of public interest, not always strictly present), statements or interviews, objective interviews (reproduced by the system of questions and answers, using direct style), and documentation (background information, news aspects to clarify and deepen it, which can appear in the news release).
Categories of Words
Words are classified into categories according to their syntactic, semantic, and morphological properties: nouns (n.), adjectives (adj.), verbs (v.), adverbs (adv.), determiners (det.), pronouns (pronom.), prepositions (prep.), conjunctions (conj.), and interjections (interj.).
Variable and Unchanged Words
Variable words are dependent on morphemes or grammatical or inflectional affixes, such as gender, person, time, method, and aspect. These include nouns, adjectives, pronouns, determiners, and verbs. Unchanged words do not change their form and include adverbs, prepositions, conjunctions, and interjections.
Nouns
Nouns are formally characterized by gender and number. Syntactically, they are the core of noun phrases. Semantically, they designate a range of concepts.
Gender of Nouns
The gender of a noun is inherent. Gender expression can be: heteronyms (nouns that form the feminine by a different lexeme, e.g., bull/cow), or epicene nouns (the same form designates both sexes).
In some nouns, the gender difference involves a difference in meaning.
Examples of Nouns
For example, the word ‘people’ (n. common) means without differentiating one particular class, is appreciated by the senses (sight and hearing), is collective singular because it designates a group of beings, is uncountable, and is animated, meaning living beings. It is female gender and singular.
Common nouns designate normal beings without distinction of the same class. Proper nouns designate a being distinct from others of their class. Antroponyms are personal names, and place names are names of places. Concrete nouns designate realities perceptible to the senses. Abstract nouns designate concepts and qualities perceptible by the intellect alone. Individual nouns are singular, designating a single individual. Collective nouns are singular, designating a set of names or nouns. Countable nouns designate beings that can be counted. Non-countable nouns designate beings that can be measured or weighed, but not quantified. Animated nouns designate beings considered to be alive, though imaginary. Inanimate nouns designate any being devoid of life.
Pronouns
Pronouns are words that replace nouns. Their meaning is occasional, depending on the noun replaced. There are six types:
- Personal: I, you, he, she, it, we, they, etc.
- Relative: that, which, whose
- Indefinite: many, some, someone, etc. and numerals (cardinal and ordinal)
- Demonstrative: this, that, these, those
- Interrogative and exclamatory
- Possessive: indicate the holder of the replaced noun, e.g., I bought your tickets and mine.
Determiners
Determiners are words that accompany nouns and limit their meaning. Some determiners coincide with pronouns. To recognize them: determiners accompany a noun with which they agree, while pronouns stand alone and are the nucleus of the noun phrase.
Articles
The meaning of an article is grammatical, as it defines the meaning of the noun and always precedes it. Definite articles: the. Indefinite articles: a, an (precedes a noun which is unknown). Contracted articles: a + el = al, de + el = del. The article serves to substantiate the preceding word or phrase.
Determinative Adjectives
Demonstrative: this, these, that. Possessive: my, your, his, her, its, our, their. Indefinite: a, an, some, any, no, another, several, other, very little, much, too, true, but rather less, each, all. Relative: which, whose. Numeral. Interrogative and exclamatory.
Adjectives
Calificative adjectives (show attributes of the accompanying noun): Formally: agree with the noun in gender and number. Semantically: express qualities or properties of the noun. Syntactically: they are the core of the adjective phrase.
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