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Philosophical Thought
Reference:

Appeal to the future in mass communication

Gavrish Alesya Dmitrievna

ORCID: 0000-0002-4791-5852

PhD in Philology

Senior Lecturer, Department of Linguistics and Intercultural Communication, Volgograd Institute of Management – branch of RANEPA

400078, Russia, Volgogradskaya oblast', g. Volgograd, ul. Gertsena, 10, aud. 407

prostozachem@mail.ru
Other publications by this author
 

 
Gulyaeva Evgeniya Vyacheslavovna

ORCID: 0000-0003-1605-8576

PhD in Philology

Associate Professor, Head of the Department of Linguistics and Intercultural Communication, Volgograd Institute of Management – branch of RANEPA

400078, Russia, Volgograd region, Volgograd, Herzen str., 10, room 407

guevgenia@yandex.ru
Other publications by this author
 

 
Kompaneeva Liudmila Gennadievna

ORCID: 0000-0001-8328-013X

PhD in Pedagogy

Associate Professor, Department of Linguistics and Intercultural Communication, Volgograd Institute of Management – branch of RANEPA

400078, Russia, Volgograd region, Volgograd, Herzen str., 10, room 407

kompaneyeva@mail.ru
Other publications by this author
 

 

DOI:

10.25136/2409-8728.2023.11.68821

EDN:

VZEVNS

Received:

27-10-2023


Published:

01-12-2023


Abstract: This article, in the framework of the system approach, considers the category of the future from the perspective of such scientific disciplines as philosophy, discourse linguistics, communication theory, psychology, methodology of science. The authors complete a definitional analysis of concepts related to the human ability to pre-empt the upcoming events (intuition, anticipation, guess, hypothesis, supposition, prediction, forecasting, prophecy). On the material of English-language and Russian-language media texts, the authors show that future can often become a subjective informational base for addressing to the mass audience by public personalities, including politicians. This probably happens due to the patterns of functioning of the human psyche, and due to the fact that there is a constant public request for information appealing to the future time category. Such a request doesn’t often depend on cultural-historical specificity. The authors conclude that prophecy can be understood as a personal particularly significant future and an axiologically super valuable reference point for future discursive connections. Some features of prophecy may include a wide emotional range, which is usually expressed in a compact form, but is potentially unlimited. The axiology of prophecy includes its ability to reduce or modify an area of intact uncertainty. Prophecies largely ensure the existence of emotionally significant non-rejected information, lacking most of the characteristic attributes of a connection with the present or the past. Studying of the deeper philosophical understanding of «prophecy» can become a prospect of further research.


Keywords:

media environment, mass communication, time, future, intuition, supposition, hypothesis, forecasting, prophecy, prediction

This article is automatically translated.

Introduction

The future, as not yet arrived, but an expected moment in time, has always aroused a person's keen interest and desire to anticipate upcoming events. One of the most common philosophical points of view is the understanding of the future as a person's ability to anticipate and expect, present in the present tense only in the mind or soul of a person [1]. Such definitions are ultimately based on a rational-materialistic perception. The complexity of understanding the future has given rise to the existence of mutually exclusive opinions that the future is either predetermined (determinism) [2, pp. 631-632], or undefined, because people themselves are able to create it (indeterminism) [3]. The American philosopher A. Grunbaum states the existence of certain physical conditions in the real world by which we can predict the future [4]. The objectivity of the process of the passage of time is inseparable from the anthropocentric living of time, reflexive "penetration" into it.  Our individual goal-setting is inevitably, due to many factors, related to time, inextricably linked to it. Perhaps there is no such goal-setting that can be separated from time: "to what kind of beginning and to what kind of cause does the ascent occur in this case, whether it has the character of matter, or the target cause, or the driving cause, it must be considered with special attention" [5, p. 205].

It should be noted that the purpose of our study can be formulated as an attempt to demonstrate the existence of a connection between arrays of information, ways of accessing them and the presence of an actualizing time factor in this process. We believe that there are ways to access arrays of information that have a number of specific features that make it possible to distinguish them into a special group. Formally, these methods can be defined as partially using information as an argumentation base that does not directly relate to either the past or the present. It is also necessary to recognize that the causality of the interactions generated by them is at least biased towards the future to such an extent that they lack some characteristic signs of referring to information discursively related to the present and the past. Such methods of accessing arrays of information include intuition (intuitive premonition), prophecy, prediction, forecasting, anticipation, formulation of assumptions and assumptions, and hypothesis building. Let's consider these phenomena in more detail.

Overview of the basic concepts

Intuition is usually understood as the mental process of searching for direct knowledge among evidence that is not logically related (or insufficient to obtain a logical conclusion), leading to direct discretion and finding the truth [6, pp. 157, 180]. A correlating psychological phenomenon is the so–called insight - insight, an unexpected instantaneous awareness of the essence of the problem and finding ways to solve it [6, p. 180]. The researchers note that the ability of intuitive feeling is associated not only with the acquisition of specific experiences, but also with the overall level of personality development. The presence of intuition is not considered as a pathological property of the psyche, intellectual activity, it is a natural human ability to come to conclusions based on information that is insufficient or incomplete to solve the problem [7, p. 262]. The assumption is "a generalizing name for an axiom, postulate, theorem and hypothesis" [8]. It is understood as a position temporarily accepted as possibly true until the truth is established [9, p. 25]. An assumption is a component of a theory that cannot be verified empirically [10]. An assumption in the context of communication theory can be considered as an assumption about the correctness of something [11]. A hypothesis is a reasonable assumption put forward in order to clarify the properties and causes of the phenomena under study, or a probabilistic assumption about the cause of any phenomena [9, p. 7]. A forecast can be understood as a scientifically based judgment about the possible conditions of an object in the future [12]. Scientific foresight is a reflection by consciousness of future events and situations determined by knowledge of physical and social laws, as well as the principles of the development of thinking [13, p. 124]. Thus, it can be noted that the above concepts have a scientific basis and are widely used by scientists in the methodology of a wide variety of humanitarian, technical and natural science disciplines.

Separately, we will study the concepts of "prediction" and "prophecy" as communicative phenomena that are potentially distinguished in media texts when analyzing media discourse. Prediction is considered by philologists as a kind of communicative action, in the content of which one can single out a fairly categorical statement about what will happen in the future. V. I. Karasik notes that predictions can be rationally conditioned and intuitively generated, formulated in a form that allows for ambiguous interpretation [14, p. 30]. According to V. I. Karasik, prophecies expressing the divine message can be opposed to predictions [14]. In the context of this study, we share the concept of religious prophecy and prophecy in the broadest sense of the word. Outside the context of religious discourse, we understand prophecy as a declaration of a high degree of personal confidence in events related to the future without reference to the probabilistic nature of such a judgment.  The concept of a self-fulfilling prophecy is also interesting. Sociologist R. K. Merton introduced this concept in order to describe a false definition of a situation, causing behavior that makes an initially false representation true. According to this concept, if someone defines a situation as real, then it will be real in its consequences [15, pp. 38-45],[16].

Some aspects of the linguistic understanding of time

The grammatical category of time is present and reflected in most languages of the world [17, p. 108]. In this case, the moment of speech is taken as a reference point for distinguishing grammatical tenses. The past is defined as what happened before the moment of speech, the present has the beginning of the moment of speech, and the future in most cases has the starting point of the moment of the end of speech [18]. Our worldview is inextricably linked to the passage of the present. Actually, the transition from the past to the present, or from the present to the future, is not designated by any separate term. T. Y. Denisova notes: "When there are no changes in our thinking (perception), or when we do not notice them, there is no gap between one "now" (beginning) and another "now" (end) for us, and the two "now" merge together" [19, p. 104]. In most languages, special linguistic units are distinguished that allow relatively accurate description of time and its discreteness (moment, moment, instant, year, week, epoch, etc.).

We have found that in mass communication there are certain tendencies to appeal to the future as a source of information (very variously implemented), and there is also a tendency to implicitly include the future in causal relationships with the present or the past. The probabilistic nature of this kind of cause-and-effect relationships is usually not declared. In mass communication, there is an active introduction of information into its actual part, which has a much greater connection with the future than with the past or present. The inevitability of the future, at the same time, serves as a kind of guarantee that this kind of information is not false. As an example, let us cite the words of N. S. Khrushchev, uttered by him at the XXII Congress of the CPSU: "The current generation of Soviet people will live under communism" [20]. In this statement, an affirmative (assertive) modality can be distinguished, which expresses the addressee's judgments that are not supported by any evidence. The sentence lacks the performative formula "I know that..." or "I think..." [21, p. 96]. In addition, there is a significant interpretative potential in this formulation [22, p. 193], since it does not directly indicate which of the generations available at that time would survive to "communism". Also, the word "generation" itself has a high potential for interpretation. In 1960, this word was broadly understood as "a set of relatives of the same degree of kinship with respect to a common ancestor", and in a figurative sense, this word meant "a set of people of close age living at a given time" [23],[24]. By choosing this form of utterance, the addressee indicates that the event will inevitably happen, which is quite typical for mass communication of that time. The Soviet Union was dominated by a materialistic natural-scientific universal ideology with a rational-materialistic approach to the formation of socially significant judgments [25]. In Soviet propaganda, they tried to avoid formulations perceived by the audience as a prophecy. Prophecies were generally considered unacceptable for shaping public opinion. Nevertheless, it was precisely such a speech formula with an appeal to the future that was used and even later became the argumentative basis for many hierarchically dependent judgments. This phrase was actively disseminated in the media, was not criticized, and was included in the basis of ideological constructions and moral and ethical norms.

In modern realities, in the Russian media discourse, the media actively publish various statements by V. V. Zhirinovsky, in which there is no direct reference to either the past or the present. At the same time, in the headlines and descriptions of news articles, his judgments of this kind are designated as prophecies. For example, the news with the headline "Zhirinovsky's prophecy about the conflict in Israel is at odds on the Web" contains the following categorical statement by Vladimir Volfovich: "Israel has no future. They will not stand either in a peaceful version or in a forceful version" [26]. In this case, the first sentence contains the word "future", and the second sentence belongs to the category of future tense from a grammatical point of view. As another example, let's give a news story with the headline "The Network remembered the "prophecy" Zhirinovsky on Ukraine and the Middle East." The text of the article itself contains an interpretation of V. V. Zhirinovsky's words "Zhirinovsky predicted that by 2024 everyone would forget about Ukraine because of the conflict in the Middle East" and his quote "By 2024, a conflict will break out in the Middle East, and everyone will simply forget what Ukraine is" [27]. The journalist-author of the article took the statement of V. V. Zhirinovsky as a prediction. In the quote given in the article, there are no words softening the categorical statement, but there are verbs standing in the form of the future tense "flare up" and "forget". It should be noted that the audience showed a positive reaction to the article, 3281 site users approved the content of the article. In the comments under this news, there was no desire of the audience to engage in a detailed polemic with the author of the article.

We believe that in society, to a large extent, regardless of the existing value system (ideology), there is a significant request for information appealing to the category of the future tense. For example, in the United States, the so-called "Groundhog Day" is traditionally celebrated, which has become a significant media event in recent years. On this day, the groundhog is removed from its burrow and its behavior is monitored. Based on the actions of the animal, predictions are made about the proximity of the onset of spring [28, pp. 136-140]. It is interesting to note that the discrepancy between the results of these predictions and the realities does not cause Americans to reject and criticize the holiday, the event is still an important part of American culture. There is also a tradition in the American media to voice astrological forecasts related to the development of the situation in the financial market. Such forecasts represent a special segment of the so-called alternative analytics [29]. Online financial prediction resources are very popular. We discovered the English-language website of the Institute of Cosmological Economics, which contains the following description: "Institute of cosmological economics. Predictive financial technologies. New scientific paradigm of market forecasting» [30]. The site contains a large number of elements such as mystical symbols and animated images, hyperlinks, online versions of books and articles on the subject of predictions. The information posted on the site is mainly astrological calculations of the probability of success in trading something (currency, grain, software, etc.). The use of such information appealing to the future tense, in our opinion, is traditional for the United States, such information is not subjected to detailed critical analysis, is relayed in the media It is partly introduced into a ritualized quasi-religious tradition, there is no full-fledged discussion around it, and when it is presented, no emphasis is placed on the probabilistic nature of such information.

Results and discussion

The phenomenon of accepting some information "from the future" as an irrevocable and axiologically significant phenomenon is most likely due to universal paradigms of world perception and attitude. Such paradigms, in our opinion, necessarily include intuitive interactions, which can be defined as non-recursive. Within the framework of such interactions, prophecy, as verbally expressed and formalized information, is beyond the usual schemes of critical comprehension based on formal logical principles. The prophecy is outside the categorical scheme "true-false-undefined" [31]. At the same time, the deactualization of the argumentation base within the framework of the prophecy does not occur due to its extreme reduction, or being outside the area accessible to criticism from the target audience.

Why are prophecies so perceived by a mass audience? They are connected with the coming of the future, and it, from the point of view of sensory perception, inevitably comes. Thus, this takes the prophecy beyond the perception of the present, despite the form of presentation. The following can be identified as possible reasons for the existence of prophecies: the needs of the audience (including the target), the needs of the addressee, the presence of an intact uncertainty zone (associated with the onset of the future) and the patterns of its transformation, the emotional and cognitive conditionality of the perception of time as a system-forming factor. The axiology of prophecies includes the ability to reduce the zone of intact uncertainty, or modify it. Prophecies largely ensure the emotionally significant existence of non-rejected information that does not have most of the characteristic signs of connection with the present or the past. The prophecy does not produce an obvious paradox when referring to the future, which is confirmed by the characteristic reactions of the mass audience.

In our opinion, it is quite correct to speak of the "habitual future" as inevitably coming, expected, easily predictable, widespread. D. Hume in the treatise "Research on human cognition" rightly noted: "Habit is the great leader of human life. It is only this principle that makes experience useful for us and encourages us to expect a course of events in the future similar to what we perceived in the past" [32]. The statement of the existence of a "familiar future" is possible within the framework of almost any linguistic culture. The "habitual future" and the "prophecy" interact, interpenetrate, and this process is not specifically formalized in speech. "Prophecy", in contrast to the "habitual future", in a certain sense represents an accentuated future, an axiologically super-valuable starting point, a reserve for future discursive connections.

In general, it should be noted that prophecy cannot be uniquely and entirely determined by the current realities of discourse. The relevance of the prophecy is largely non-discursive. The preservation of the element(s) of uncertainty in the prophecy is probably necessary. On the other hand, we must state that in the information flow produced by the media, prophecy is perceived by the mass audience as a natural, non-irritating and non-repudiated phenomenon. A very wide emotional range can be noted as a specific property of prophecy (including, but not limited to, the interpretative potential itself), which, as a rule, is presented in a compact form, but is practically unlimited.

Conclusion

Summing up the results of the conducted research, it should be noted the following. One can confidently state the existence of a public request for information appealing to the category of the future tense. This request, most likely, does not depend much on historical and linguistic and cultural specifics, it is quite characteristic and traditional. Probably, the appeal to the arrays of information "from the future" is associated with the large-scale patterns of human psychology and the perception of time as a system-forming factor. Most likely, this kind of appeal to information related to the future, its form, inclusion in the system of public relations, will undergo little change, even taking into account the progressive digitalization.

Prophecy can be understood as a declaration of a high degree of personal confidence in events related to the future, without reference to the probabilistic nature of such a judgment. Prophecy has become an integral part of texts in mass communication and is likely to remain so. The prophecy is characterized by the incompleteness of the "life cycle". It has an "open date" for the final actualization – the onset of predicted events. The communicative phenomenon of "prophecy", which is found in the media, requires further consideration by the scientific community, since its problems are localized at the junction of different scientific disciplines. The prospect of further study of the prophecy is its deeper philosophical understanding.

References
1. Akulov, A. S. (1999). A brief philosophical dictionary: summary of the book «Letters of philosophy». Saint Petersburg, Russia.
2. Sachkov, Y. V. (2010). Determinism. In New Philosophical Encyclopedia. Moscow: Mysl'.
3. Lebedev, S. A. & Kudryavtsev, I. K. (2005). Determinism and indeterminism in the development of natural science // Bulletin of the Moscow University. Series 7: Philosophy, 6, 3–20.
4. Grunbaum, A. (2010). Philosophical problems of space and time. Translated from Eng. by Y. B. Molchanov. Moscow: LIBROKOM.
5. Aristotle. (2002). Metaphysics. Translations. Comments. Interpretations. Ed. S. I. Eremeev. St. Petersburg: Aleteija.
6. Meshcheryakov, B. G. & Zinchenko, V. P. (Eds). (2003). Grand psychological dictionary. Moscow: Prime-EUROZNAK.
7. Westcott, M. R. (2003) Intuition. In Psychological Encyclopedia. Saint Petersburg: Peter.
8. Zhmurov, V. A. (2012). Grand Encyclopedia of Psychiatry. Moscow: Jangar.
9. Sinyuk, A. I. & Yakovlev, Y. V. (2008). A brief dictionary of the main logical concepts: educational and methodical manual for teachers and students of universities. Nizhnekamsk: Published by NMU.
10. Matsumoto, D. (2008). Man, Culture, Psychology. Amazing mysteries, researches and discoveries. Translated from Eng. by O. Golubeva, et al. Saint Petersburg: Prime-EUROZNAK.
11. Romanova, N. N. & Phillipov, A. V. (2021). Dictionary. Culture of speech communication: ethics, pragmatics, psychology. Moscow: FLINT.
12. Svetun’kov, I. S. & Svetun’kov, S. G. (2023). Theory and methodology: textbook and workshop for universities (Volume 1). In Methods of socio-economic forecasting (in 2 volumes). Moscow: Yurait.
13. Danakari, L. R. (2015). Intuitive knowledge and scientific foresight as methods of epistemic research. Logos et Praxis, 2, 123–127.
14. Karasik, V. I. (2017) Prediction as a communicative act. Communicative research, 3(13), 30–46.
15. Haustov, D. S. (2014). Theory of Thomas: the life of one idea. Ideas and Ideals, 3(21), 38–45.
16. Merton, R. (2006). Social theory and social structure. Moscow: AST.
17. Kozlova, L. A. (2019). Comparative typology of English and Russian languages: a training manual. Barnaul: AltGPU.
18. Akhmanova, O. S. (2004). Dictionary of linguistic terms. Moscow: URSS.
19. Denisova, T. Y. (2017). Ontology of time at Aristotle // Ideas and ideals, 3(33), 100‒110.
20XXII Congress of the CPSU. Federal Portal of the History of Russia «History.RF». Retrieved from https://histrf.ru/read/articles/xxii-siezd-kpss-event
21. Yurieva, E. V. (2018). Features of implementation of modality in slogans of social advertising. Topical issues of modern philology and journalism, 4(31), 92–100.
22. Bulygina, E. Y.& Tripolskaya, T. A. (2015). Dynamic processes in the content of emotional concepts «Envy» and «Jealousy» in Slavic and Romano-Germanic languages. Ruthin, 3(41), 191–209.
23. Ozhegov, S. I. (1960). Dictionary of Russian language. Moscow: GIS.
24. Generation. In Grand online dictionary of meanings of words of Russian language «Meaning of a word». Retrieved from https://znachenie-slova.ru/ïîêîëåíèå
25. Soskovets, L. I. (2005). Phenomenon of the Soviet Antireligious propaganda. Bulletin of TSU, 288, 189–199.
26. The prophecy of Zhirinovsky about the conflict in Israel is dispersed in the Network. Article dated 07.10.2023. Online newspaper «Arguments and Facts». Retrieved from https://aif.ru/incidents/vladimir_zhirinovskiy_sdelal_prorochestvo_o_konflikte_v_izraile#
27. The Network recalled Zhirinovsky «prophecy» about Ukraine and the Middle East. Article dated 09.10.2023. Online news agency «RIA Novosti». Retrieved from https://ria.ru/20231009/zhirinovskiy-1901388253.html
28. Koshkina, E. N. (2020). Russian and American culture: traditions and customs in comparison. Theory and practice of modern science, 3(57), 136–140.
29. Skrynnikova, A. Earn on the stars: how financial astrology is applied in investments. Article dated 13.01.2023. Online Russian version of Forbes magazine «forbes.ru». Retrieved from https://www.forbes.ru/investicii/483564-zarabotat-na-zvezdah-kak-finansovaa-astrologia-primenaetsa-v-investiciah
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First Peer Review

Peer reviewers' evaluations remain confidential and are not disclosed to the public. Only external reviews, authorized for publication by the article's author(s), are made public. Typically, these final reviews are conducted after the manuscript's revision. Adhering to our double-blind review policy, the reviewer's identity is kept confidential.
The list of publisher reviewers can be found here.

The author of the reviewed article is certainly right that interest in the future and the desire to appeal to it as a "source of information" has always been characteristic of a person. It can be added that such interest became especially vivid in transitional epochs, when a certain "image of the future" (a phrase present in a number of recent speeches by the President) becomes the most important motive for the activities of large social communities. The reviewed article analyzes the phenomenon of turning to the future in the field of mass communication, and such a statement of the question deserves support, since the sentiments found in this area capture just a wide range of readers, listeners, and viewers, which cannot but influence the evolution of public consciousness. Although the author mentions that the construction of an "image of the future" can be carried out by various "tools", including those that meet the strict requirements of logical thinking, the article deals mainly with those ways of representing the future that can be characterized as "methodologically reduced", that is, not meeting the requirements of scientific and technicaltheoretical thinking: "intuitive premonition" (?), "prophecy, prediction, forecasting, anticipation, formulation of assumptions and assumptions, hypothesis building." As we can see, the author does not indicate, for example, that the "hypothesis" may be justified (based on a known set of facts and taking into account trends in the development of society), or it may be arbitrary. Of course, the author could object that it is precisely the sphere of mass communication that is far from the requirements of scientific validity, but no sphere of public consciousness exists in isolation, and the constructiveness of emerging public attitudes and the ability of society as a whole significantly depends on the possibility of using scientific forecasting methods in determining the interests and preferences of participants in mass communication to overcome the problems that arise. The main conceptual disadvantage of the reviewed article is that for some reason the author does not recall the goal-setting nature of human activity as a necessary prerequisite for the appearance of "information from the future". Suffice it to recall that Aristotle already identified the target (final) causes as one of the factors of human behavior, however, the ancient medieval worldview "universalized" them, extended them to nature, but this can hardly be a reason to doubt the insight of the Stagirite, because the model for its analysis, according to the unanimous opinion of experts, was it is human activity. It should be noted that the author does not use the legacy of classical philosophy enough at all, in particular, when he talks about the "familiar future", the name of D. Hume seems to "ask for language", but for some reason the author also does not pronounce it. He speaks mainly about "psychological patterns" as determinants of the appearance of the "image of the future": "the appeal to arrays of information "from the future" is associated with large patterns of human psychology (an extremely stylistically unsuccessful expression, – the reviewer) and the perception of time as a system-forming factor." However, the author is right that in the field of mass communication there is just "a tendency to implicitly include the future in causal relationships with the present or the past, ... the active introduction of ... information that has a much greater connection with the future than with the past or the present." As can already be seen from the quoted fragments, there are some errors of a terminological and stylistic nature in the article, for example, the author at the very beginning speaks of the future as "not yet arrived, but an expected period of time (why a "segment", rather, a "ray"), or speaks of an "assertive" modality, meanwhile in connection with logical terms (modality), it is preferable to use the term "assertive". Unfortunately, the article is not subtitled, and it is quite difficult to distinguish the plot in the narrative, there is neither an introduction nor a clear conclusion in it. Some questions are raised by the sources to which the author refers. The fact is that reference publications prevail among them. Of course, in the process of working on a scientific publication, you can refer to dictionaries, encyclopedias and other similar publications, but it is hardly reasonable to refer to generalizing materials if you can refer to more fundamental sources. Annoying typos also remained in the text ("among the logically unrelated...", – "unrelated" should be written separately; "summing up the results of the study, it should be noted...", – where is the comma?; "in events related to the future without reference...", – "the participial turnover is not closed,"the reference is stylistically inappropriate, etc.). Nevertheless, the article has good prospects for publication in a scientific journal, since it contains elements of scientific research, although it would be inappropriate to publish it in its presented form. I recommend sending the article for revision.

Second Peer Review

Peer reviewers' evaluations remain confidential and are not disclosed to the public. Only external reviews, authorized for publication by the article's author(s), are made public. Typically, these final reviews are conducted after the manuscript's revision. Adhering to our double-blind review policy, the reviewer's identity is kept confidential.
The list of publisher reviewers can be found here.

The subject of the research of the article "Appeal to the future in mass communication" is the connection of information functioning in society at the moment with the future. The author makes an attempt to demonstrate the existence of a connection between arrays of information, ways of accessing them and the presence of an actualizing time factor in this process. The methodology of the research is not specified by the author, but actually consists in an inductive analysis of modern political discourse from the position of fixing an appeal to the future in it. The author, apparently, as a theoretical basis for the research, undertakes a review of the basic concepts, which, in his opinion, reflect various ways of accessing information in the aspect of the future - intuitive premonition, prophecy, prediction, forecasting, anticipation, formulation of assumptions and assumptions, building a hypothesis. However, the dictionary definitions of these concepts do not clarify the process of referring to the time vector in building information communication. At the same time, it is clear from the text of the article that the author categorically does not distinguish between the future and the idea of the future (the image of the future), which leads to a logical blurring of further reflections. The relevance of the article is not obvious and is not explained by the author. The scientific novelty, if we consider the main message of the article as the study of the influence of ideas about the future on the present, lies in the original turn of the problem that the author makes. He examines how information reported in the present is intentionally linked to the topic of the future in order to increase its value. The style of the article is typical for scientific publications in the field of humanitarian studies. The author specifies the meaning of the main terms, clearly formulates the key theses and logically consistently argues them. The structure and content generally correspond to the stated topic. The author begins his research with a conceptual overview, in which he focuses on the definition of "prediction" and "prophecy" as communicative phenomena. Then, there is an appeal to the understanding of the linguistic aspects of time in communicative acts. It is stated that there are tendencies in mass communication to appeal to the future as a source of information, hence the prevalence of the form of "prophecy" as a connection of information with a time later than the time of its communication. As a result of discussing the reasons for this type of interest in the future, the author comes to the conclusion that these include: the needs of the audience (including the target), the needs of the addressee, the presence of an intact uncertainty zone (associated with the onset of the future) and the patterns of its transformation, the emotional and cognitive conditionality of the perception of time as a system-forming factor. The bibliography of the article includes 32 titles of works, including dictionaries, works on philology, philosophical treatises. The materials listed in the bibliography are used by the author as sources for observations and conclusions about the functions of addressing the future in the process of organizing and transmitting information. The appeal to opponents, or rather its complete absence, is the main problem of the article. The author turns to the study of the connection between arrays of information and its engagement with the topic of the future, as if no one had dealt with this issue before him. But this is not the case. All links and citations of the article are references to the texts used by the author as material for analysis. It seems that the author is not familiar with such a scientific field as futures studies, which actually includes his research aimed at studying the presence of the future in the present, the functioning of ideas about the future, or, as in the text under consideration, information "coming from the future", legitimized by prophecy, in current information communications. Such ignorance significantly reduces the value of the presented text. Due to the fact that the author does not see the need to correlate his research with research in the field of studying ideas about the future functioning in the present (futures studies), potential readers in the article may be attracted by its ideological aspect – the use of the future as an "informational occasion" to draw attention to political discourse.