Cognitive and Discursive Features of Media Texts in the Context of Film and Game Design Integration

This study explores the cognitive and discursive features of media texts created at the intersection of cinema and interactive game design in the digital age. The research focuses on hybrid media products—interactive films, visual novels, and story-driven video games that combine cinematic linearity with gamified non-linearity, engaging users in active narrative construction. The paper examines meaning-making mechanisms triggered by multimodal representation and the cognitive processes involved in interpretation, emotional identification, and audience engagement. Special attention is given to phenomena such as framing, scenario activation, mental modeling, performativity of utterances, the effect of presence, and moral reflection within user interaction with the media text. The analysis is situated within the broader context of media discourse transformation and the evolving role of language in digital storytelling. Methodologically, the study applies an interdisciplinary approach that integrates cognitive linguistics, narratology, critical discourse analysis, and semiotics. The novelty of the research lies in its conceptualization of media text as a dynamic cognitive-discursive system emerging from the interaction between the author, interface, media environment, and user. Unlike traditional models, the study views interactive media texts as co-authored structures, where users not only interpret but actively shape narrative meaning. It is shown that interactive formats activate complex mental models and decision-making trajectories, supported by moral evaluation, emotional engagement, and narrative polyphony. The findings offer new insights into the transformation of communicative strategies and meaning-construction mechanisms in digital culture and are valuable for future work in media linguistics, digital storytelling, and the cognitive analysis of multimodal texts.