Spreading the Fear: The Informational and Manipulative Strategies of Online News on COVID-19 Pandemic Crisis

Abstract

This article addresses perspectivization and manipulation of the online news platforms. It focuses on how COVID-19 related online news articles (ONAs) were instrumentally conditioned and linguistically perspectivized, resorting to variable strategies of self-(re)presentation and Information Sourcing/Accrediting. The research objective is to study the cognitive mechanisms and communicative strategies inherent in manipulative verbalization in Arab ONA discourse during the crisis during the COVID-19 global pandemic. The study offers a cognitive semantic analysis of the pragmatic network of strategies of the media discourse and perspectivization regulatory system. The data analyses led to the conclusion that with the strategically objectivized and subjectivized perspective during the process of communication, the author of ONA messages intentionally organizes the texts in such a way to leave an impact on the addressees. They have shown that mass media ONA websites have offered a massive amount of information yet may manipulate their perception of the pandemic.