Ukrainian Gonzo Journalism Within the System of Mass Communication

Introduction. The themes and content of gonzo journalism produced by Ukrainian authors over the past decade have been primarily focused on exposing the imperial nature of Russia’s aggressive war against Ukraine and revealing the sinister aspects of international politics that distort or undervalue the heroic defensive struggle of the Ukrainian people against Kremlin barbarism — a struggle for their natural right to live in an independent, national, and united Ukrainian state. Relevance of the study. The study aims to define and characterize the gonzo-journalistic style and its expressive means, comparing them with the linguistic and stylistic tools of traditional journalism. The comparison is conducted in the context of the author’s conceptual and intentional framework, where verbal and audiovisual codes function jointly to form semantic, emotional, and pragmatic media resources designed to foster civic consciousness and moral-spiritual values among Ukrainians. Methodology. The research methodology is based on general scientific principles of historicism, authenticity, concreteness, functionality, systematicity, cognitive approach, and modeling. Methods of content analysis, intent analysis, document study, observation, generalization, and descriptive analysis were employed. Results. The contemporary model of Ukrainian gonzo journalism relies on diverse heterogeneous components that together create a unified informational image, amplifying and deepening the perception of the material’s meaning as well as the author’s referential, modal, and representative intentions. The distinctive features of Ukrainian gonzo style include rhetorical constructions, grotesque, irony, hyperbole, contrast, antithesis, emotionality, speculation, and a sense of scale. Elements of gonzo stylistics, including the use of non-normative language, are typical of many texts directly or indirectly related to the full-scale Russian-Ukrainian war. Conclusions. For the first time within Ukraine’s information and humanitarian space, this study attempts a comprehensive examination, interpretation, and generalization of the stylistic, expressive, and structural features of gonzo journalism in comparison with traditional (classical) journalism.