The study of aesthetic categories in television discourse. Iconic analysis

This article presents the results of research on the category of aesthetization on television. The author is interested in one of the levels of television discourse: the relevant programs of Polish tv channels. The research task is to investigate the ways of manifesting aesthetics and the related and perhaps antinomic phenomena in the iconosphere of selected television genres. The material consists of tv films, documentaries and children’s programmes. The article deals with the following categories: aesthetics as the manifestation of the attitude approving the existence of categories centred around the value of beauty; anti-aesthetics as the acceptance for aesthetically negative values; and anaesthetics as the indifference to aesthetic values: both the mild ones and the negative ones. The results of the semiotic examination are as follows. There is no space foranesthetics, i.e. a strategy of indifference on television. It is a place either for aesthetizing or for anti-aesthetizing. The institutional broadcaster always bears the mark of aesthetizing activity; in particular, the presenters and the faces of the station are characterized by telegenicity. The aesthetizing strategy of television has two purposes: promotional and educational. The anti-aesthetizing strategy appears in two roles: exhibitionistic and voyeuristic; the viewer gets the opportunity to pry on their neighbour through the television. Tv dramas and children’s cartoons use aesthetic strategies in an educational function. Documentaries, news programmes and breakfast shows use aesthetizing strategies in the self-promotive function. An interesting field will be to compare the other genres and the other television on the effects of the research