Manipulative function of political realia in the publicistic discourse

The article studies political realia in the publicistic discourse as the mean of manipulation. In the current situation of political competition and stress on the pro-pagandistic functions of Mass Media the problem of manipulation gets quite actual. On the given stage of the development of the linguistic science this problem isn't studied in the proper way. The source of material studied in the paper are the analytical political articles concerning the conflicts in Syria and Ukraine. On the basis of the semantical differentiation method we studied the level of the impact of the realia on readers. According to the results of the analysis Russian political realia provide positive attitude towards the author and the described situation while American ones cause negative reaction. Omission or definition (interpretation) of the realia results in neutral reaction. The results let us conclude that political realia in the publicistic discourse performs the manipulative function.