21 Forecast

The emergence of the “forecast” genre has occurred over the past ten years and is directly related to the processes of reforming society. The desire to find out what lies ahead leads to a wave of predictions, prophecies, predictions, which has overwhelmed the pages of the national press, which have become perhaps one of the most noticeable and constant phenomena for it ever since.

Predictions, or predictions, are judgments about the future. The forecast that always comes true is called "prophecy." Sometimes the term “forecast” is replaced by journalists with the concept of “hypothesis”. These concepts coincide only in part. The hypothesis, as well as the forecast, in some cases can consider some phenomena related to the future. But it can be turned into the past. The forecast is always associated only with the future of certain phenomena. In addition, the forecast always considers the future state of existing phenomena. In contrast, the hypothesis may be talking about phenomena that have never existed or do not exist at the moment. Not quite right to identify the forecast with the version. The version is a possible variant of the development of the event. With the help of versions, they usually try to explain already accomplished facts. But sometimes the version describes the development of a phenomenon in the future. In this case, the concept of "version" and "forecast" may coincide.

On the pages of today's press, journalists as authors of forecasts are relatively rare. Most often they are made up of specialists, experts, scientists of the corresponding field of activity. This happens when the publication aims to give a serious prediction. The reason for the appeal of journalists to such people is, of course, the knowledge they possess. In the best case - this is accurate knowledge. Relying on them, you can just look into the future. But the accuracy of knowledge about the current state of the predicted phenomenon is not a guarantee of the accuracy of predicting its future. But sometimes there is a need for an entertainment forecast. Pr.Koldovskih predictions about the fate of the parliamentary number of prominent Russian politicians. If a journalist decides to make his own forecast, then we must begin with establishing the basic facts, which will be the foundation of the forecast. The initial foundation should be perceived as serious and irrefutable by those for whom the journalist writes.

At the disposal of the journalist may be facts quite reliable. And yet, in and of themselves, they do not guarantee the accuracy of the forecast. It is necessary to use them correctly. And this requires knowledge of forecasting methods. On the pages of the press most often there are the following methods.

Extrapolation method (projection). And he projects the basic tendency of development of the phenomenon under study as a whole onto the future of this phenomenon. The existence of its (tendency) is precisely the evidence that has been accumulated by the author. It must be interrelated facts. The method of analogy . Recall that the analogy is one of the types of comparison, when, based on the coincidence of a number of basic features, it is concluded that all other signs of the compared phenomena coincide.

Scripting method . Such a method proceeds from the fact that complex situations, processes develop under the influence of a number of factors. In the presence of certain conditions, the influence of one of the factors may prevail, which means that different results of this influence (ie, future states of the phenomenon under study) are possible. The presentation of different options is the creation of scenarios for the possible development of the phenomenon.

Forecasting is sometimes called a dangerous genre. Unlike the message that has already happened, the forecast cannot be verified, therefore it is an excellent means of provocation.

Suppose the reader has learned from the newspaper that the bank in which his money is lying is about to collapse. Most likely, he will take his contribution just in case. And if many people take their deposits, the bank may collapse! Bankers know this well and often use pseudo-forecast as a means of competition.

Both politicians and journalists know this. Therefore, "forecasters" are always under the gun of the attention of opponents. Because of this, the published forecast is often the reason for political fights.

See also

• Reportage
• 15 Review