The essence of prospection in mass media discourse

The article is devoted to the description of the future tense in mass media discourse. The author identifies the functions and tasks of mass media discourse, describes its specificity from the point of view of expressing the future. The author finds that mass media discourse is a complex conglomerate which is built on the unity of internal and external dialogical relations of its members. The author argues that in mass communication texts the participants of the communication process are not individuals but collective entities, which is why the internal dialogism of mass media discourse is determined not only by the intention of informing, but also by provision of one or another ideological influence on the reader. The specificity of media discourse is revealed by the author in variability means of expressing the future tense in communication process. Knowing of this specificity is important for the cognitive analysis of the English language world picture, which is regarded as a particular mental structure associated with human mind and culture activities.