Ethnic information as one of the factors of the ethnic stereotype formation

Abstract

This article considers ethnical information as one of the factors of the formation and content changes of ethnic stereotypes, in particular, autostereotypes and heterostereotypes. Furthermore, it highlights how mass media and ethnical information influence positively and negatively self-consciousness of readers. The ethnical information plays a key role in interethnic relations. As a source material, there are used commentaries for publishing materials which contain ethnical information. The author points out and gives particular examples of how positive stereotypes in language consciousness concerning national traditions can be damaged by ethnic information which contain negative details. Moreover, ethnical information can be modeled in readers’ mind in correspondence to modern global tendency. In some cases ethnical negative message can be considered not as a national issue, but as a general social issue.