The article is devoted to the functioning features of precedent texts in modern media discourse.
Texts by F.M. Dostoevsky, namely, fiction, journalism and epistolary heritage, served as the research material.
The relevance of the study is explained by the intertextual nature of the modern media space.
The article shows that along with the use of Dostoevsky's precedent texts as signs of high culture, the modern media space also actively manifests the features of the postmodern cultural paradigm. The specifics of the latter include metatextuality, irony, various kinds of transformation, e.g., in headlines, which indicates their game foregrounding.
Special attention is paid, firstly, to various types of intertextuality and ways of precedent phenomena foregrounding; secondly, to their use in various media areas (advertising, urban naming) and genres (interviews, internet blogs, etc.).
The problem of recoding precedent phenomena is considered against the background of the use of signs of high culture as a form of reflection of modern mass consciousness in modern media communication, which is of research interest from an axiological point of view.