mass media

The problem of socialization of the individual and generations is one of the most urgent ones. The influence of mass media is associated with certain challenges and risks for society and individuals, especially in relation to socially insuffi ciently mature children, adolescents and youth. It is in the young age that individuals go through the most crucial stage of socialization and the formation of a socially mature personality.

Empirical base of this article is comprised of five monographs by A.V. Fedorov and his colleagues published from 2013 to 2015. The author highlights several, from his point of view, the most urgent and important issues touched on in the writings considered. An idea is substantiated that necessity to develop social and political model of media education is becoming patently obvious nowadays.

The article contains results of regional media landscape analysis conducted through the lens of political resource potential of mass media in modern Russia. Having defined the key elements of political resource potential, the authors assess ability of the State tele- and radio company “Saratov” to affect regional political process. An inference is made that, compared with non-governmental mass media, media outlets comprising the aforementioned holding company, as a rule, have greater potential for political influence.

The main objective of this article is to identify the features and causes of non-compliance/distortion of the basic principles and values of democracy as the main problem of its improper functioning. The analysis is based on the study and comparison of classical and modern works on democracy, which touch upon the interaction of democracy with the media, the elite and capitalism, in order to systematize approaches to the study of the problems of its functionality.

In modern science, attempts to measure media literacy / media competence are made from time to time. However, those who try to do it usually employ different theoretical premises, interpret phenomenon under consideration in their own ways, and, as a result, use various criteria for evaluations. Based on the analysis of more than hundred most oft-quoted (both in foreign and Russian scholarship) definitions of media literacy, the author offers his own conception of the term and puts forward the way it can be measured.

Based on public surveys results’ analysis, the main features of Russia’s youth disposition towards politics are considered in this article. The author describes the media component of the youth political culture within the context of the degree to which their media literacy is formed and suggests pessimistic and optimistic tendencies the phenomenon under consideration has.

The main methods to counteract manipulative techniques used by mass media for political purposes are considered in this article. Among others, the author argues the necessity to compare information from different news sources, to check credibility of the facts conveyed by journalists, and to evaluate the extent to which a story is balanced.

The subject of this research is the transnationalization of mass communication as a phenomenon directly related to globalization. Based on the comparison of the views of different scientists, the author analyzes the place of the media and communications in modern society, in the transition of different social relations (economic, political) of the levels of competence of national States at the international, supranational level.

The article provides a sociological rationale of constructing moral panics in Russian society in 1990- 2010s. Statistical data are used, as well as a secondary analysis of the results of sociological research: both the research of other scientists and their own author’s developments.

The article is devoted to the study of the concept of “information sovereignty” and the basic means of its implementation. The article reveals the reasons that have aggravated the demand of the state for the construction of information sovereignty. Moreover, the paper reveals the main components of it. Further in the item, the concepts of the “information shield” policy and the “information sword” policy are analyzed and conceptualized. The differences between them are detected, the resources necessary for their realization are analyzed.