Background. The paper focuses on manipulating the mass consciousness of the audience. Traditionally, this issue has been considered as an attempt to present the advertising of a TV product as information, but within the digital age, there is a desire to present promotion of TV content as a game. However, the “non-gaming” goals of the institutions that stand behind video games and games in alternate reality may be hidden from the players and serve commercial goals.

Objective. The study focuses on identifying and describing the advantages and disadvantages of using gamification in the TV promo-discourse. The author examines examples of using games in alternative reality and also multiplayer online games in real time in order to attract the attention of films and TV series viewers, analyzes the causes of success and failure of similar projects in related fields, and also in science and business.

Design. The study is valuable for interdisciplinary approach. Analyzing the use of gamification techniques in the TV promo-discourse the author raises topical issues of media psychology, perception psychology, philosophy of video games, ethics, communicative stylistics and media stylistics.

The paper highlights philological methods designed according to the tasks of the research: communicative discursive analysis, synchronic descriptive and synchronic comparative methods. The description of the provisions and forms of persuasive communication as applied to TV promotions includes elements of logical meaning-specific analysis (i.e. argumentative analysis), and also intentional, ethical and psychological analysis. This approach helps to give an adequate description of gamification effects in TV promodiscourse.

Results. The author comes to the conclusion that the ability of game mechanics to motivate mass recepients of the TV promo discourse to watch television programs is enormous, but the viewers of the TV channels need to be critical of gamification projects: they have to understand the purposes they are framed to, and take part in projects whose non-gamer goals are merely civil without implying exploitation of the gamer. Framed to the ethical norms gamification in the TV promotion can be both an effective tool for promoting TV content, and also a way to change the social order for the better.

Conclusion.Theoretical conclusions of the study of the mass consciousness manipulation through using gamification in TV promotions can be widely used in teaching medialinguistics, speech culture, TV, philosophy of video games, humanitarian researche of video game, etc. The results of this study seem to be useful to media professionals.

The paper is devoted to the concept of narrative in social psychology. The problem of lack of unity in the understanding and application of this concept in the research methods is discussed. The goal is to systemize the approaches to narrative from the perspective of the identity research. Narrative is a concept that is beginning to be widely used in the study of personality, self-perception, communication, and the study of various social practices; that is why it is necessary to determine which properties of narrative can be applied to the study of identity. The paper performs a review of four most common approaches to the narrative: narrative as a particular mode of thought (J. Bruner), narrative as a metatheoretical paradigm (T. Sarbin), narrative as a life story, narrative as one of discourse genres. The features of the narrative in each approach, as well as the main problems of research are analized. Two criteria of the narrative are discussed: specific temporal structure and transformation criterion. The following features of the concept of narrative in psychology are focused upon: discursive understanding of narrative, the importance of incorporating interactional and cultural contexts within the study of narrative, functional approach to the definition of the narrative. We discuss the potential of the narrative as a psychological construct in the study of identity and define two promising approaches to the narrative: the analysis of separate life events (e.g. turning points and complex actions) and the analysis of narration as a discursive practice and an interactional process which is sensitive to local context and to wider social practices.

In the modern world a dominant role in everyday life is played by such media channels as television, video resources and the Internet. Perception of the world is reverberated by the more indirect images of this world, whereas visuality is the formative principle of visual culture. «The «visual turn» consists in the shift of modern methods of verbal perception toward visual, or image ones.

Images are the components of the mental architecture. Image sensitivity replaces the text and sometimes it complements the text. Topical issues of visualization require modernised research methods of media images, which must be included in the broader context of interdisciplinary research.

The Internet space acquires an independent meaning, it carries a growing set of social interactions and contacts. With the development of the Internet business, the linear narratives are replaced by hypertextual and visual ones. The Internet can be viewed in “the postmodern situation» as a setting of global automation, and also as endless polyphonic communication of independent segments once a common cultural and information space. The most active Internet audience is presented by young people. Within them the formation of various subcultures and communities is inherent, there is a new system for structuring culture.

In the modern consumer society, along with other advertising media, products are increasingly becoming a source of visual differentiation and entertainment. The visual impact of online advertising is determined by the fact that it represents the lifestyle and values of the youth subculture, constructs a new perception and develops a new structure of consciousness and vision of the world of young people.