The meaning of the media in modern life with examples. The role of the media in modern Russian society

Nesterova I.A. Mass media, types, functions, role and influence // Nesterov Encyclopedia

The media are the most important tool for social development in the modern world. However, in dishonest hands, the media turns into a sophisticated propaganda tool. Thus, the European media have been convincing EU residents for many years that refugees are good. The consequences were an increase in crime and a loss of moral principles.

In the modern period of development of Russian society, the successful solution of political, economic and social problems increasingly depends on the action of such a subjective factor as the social activity of the individual. The media play an important role in shaping activism. The growing role of the press, radio and television in the public life of the country is evidenced by their rapid growth, prevalence and accessibility of mass information. The printed and spoken word, television images are capable of reaching the most remote areas in the shortest possible time and penetrating any social environment.

The media is a powerful force of influence on people’s consciousness, a means of quickly delivering information to different parts of the world, the most effective means of influencing human emotions, capable of convincing the recipient in the best possible way. This is especially clear in relation to electronic media. As technical capabilities expand, their role increases. And in terms of their emotional impact on people’s feelings and consciousness, they remain unsurpassed and gather the largest audience. In the media, and especially on television, issues of increasing the effectiveness of speeches are closely related to the level of organization of the creative process, forms and means of socio-political education of journalistic, artistic and technical personnel. First of all, this is the selection of problems whose solutions can be supported and suggested by the audience, and the creation of long-term plans for the work of the media that include them.

Currently, the influence of the media on personality has increased significantly. Television currently occupies a dominant position among the media. If in the late 70s and early 80s a television was considered a luxury, today television has become firmly established in the everyday life of almost every family. Gradually, television is replacing newspapers and magazines and seriously competing with radio. Competition with the press is explained by the emergence of new technologies on television.

The effectiveness of the media is inextricably linked with taking into account the needs of people, their increased social, spiritual and political demands. In this case, it is necessary to distinguish between the concepts information needs And thematic interests audience. Information needs are social in nature and are determined primarily by the content and structure of a person’s daily activities, including the objective characteristics of his professional and social activities. Thematic interests depend on the content of the information offered and on situational socio-psychological factors (such as popularity, topicality, prestige of certain topics, persons, phenomena, etc.). Some information about the information needs of the audience can be obtained through a survey. The survey provides only a picture of the thematic interests of the audience. It must be supplemented with an analysis of the nature of the role activities of representatives of various population groups in work, the sphere of social and spiritual life, everyday life and family.

The modern audience is included in the entire system of social relations. Therefore, in order to achieve the goals of their activities, the media must take into account the needs, interests, motives, attitudes and corresponding characteristics of the audience, including a number of specific ones, formed with the direct participation of the media. With this approach, the audience is assigned an active, goal-oriented role, which is the result of the communicative process.

These days, television and print media are looking for new approaches to reach their audiences. Based on this, among the topics of newspapers and magazines, new, albeit not always “pure”, but at least attracting the reader directions appeared (“Yellow Press”, “Scandals”, “Top Secret”, “AIDS Info”, etc.) television massively promotes all kinds of “pro-American” quizzes (“Field of Miracles” - an analogue of the American “Wheel of Fortune” and others), as well as various talk shows on topical topics (“The Big Wash”, “Windows”, etc.). Well, the level of culture of the population largely determines the level of culture of the media...

In preparing this work, materials from the site http://www.studentu.ru were used

The modern order in the world is often called the information age, since enormous opportunities for sharing knowledge are open to people. Information is, first of all, the possession of knowledge about a real fact. And this is where the main role of the media comes into play.

The media presents humanity with options that were hitherto unknown. Therefore, today we can calmly know what is happening in China, living in Moscow, although just “some” eight hundred years ago Marco Polo spent almost half the years of his life traveling to the Celestial Empire.
But information exchange is a thing of the past. Current media technologies are developing via the Internet. This means that as soon as some event occurs in one part of the world, we can not only find out the opinion of official authorities or newspapers, but also read the comments of eyewitnesses, write them our opinion - and all this in real time.

Development of Russian media
The revolution in the Russian media began in the late eighties, when the usual slogans “the party, the will of the people, the opinion of the proletariat” were replaced by the slogans: “glasnost, freedom of speech.”
However, it is a controversial question what came first - the desire of people to speak out about painful issues, or the desire to randomly express thoughts. Therefore, initially Russian media developed on the idea of ​​truth. But what is truth? Is it true in the media?

Any more or less discerning person understands that society is built on a system of knowledge exchange. That is, at the top of society there are people who have real information. The bottom is the crowd whose main role is the purposeful refusal of facts. However, does the crowd need facts? Controversial issue. The crowd wants a hamburger, a TV and an affordable discount at H&M clothing store.

The Soviet consumer was never spoiled by an overabundance of information. Communist society was passive and dreamy, watching the rise of a new star. In this sense, Western society has always been completely different. And the role of the media here was to periodically add more water to the pot. The water began to evaporate, steam appeared, and therefore people could never completely relax, remembering their true purpose of existence - the American dream and the unbridled growth of capital. In the USSR, the opposite happened. People got used to television as a kind of instrument of masochistic play, which poured out on them an even greater number of different kinds of “accidents,” and people began to believe in these accidents.
The fact is that journalism is a profession that implies an ethical and tactical basis. A journalist is not so much a person who has the right to express thoughts in a wide format and to the public, but rather a person - a social standard who is allowed to talk about many things. When the party school was destroyed, journalists began to focus on the Western way: to say what they want. And this was far from correct.
Therefore, the main dilemma in Russia today is not only the issue of “freedom of speech”, but also the culture of a journalist, media worker, as a person. Society should show the journalist the path of thought, but not limit him, but guide him based on fair interest.

Development of new technologies
It is not surprising that we talk so much about the media, because the media are not only a source of information, but also a colossal source of propaganda. Man in the 21st century differs little from man in the 12th century. Yes, we can go to Egypt and make sure that the inhabitants of other parts of the globe are not creatures with two heads or with dog paws, as the ancient Greeks believed, but we still receive the general part of information through wide sources. These are newspapers, television and the Internet.

An aspect of modern media is the breadth of their penetration into public life. Here we can give a simple example from the political struggle of the early 20th century. Newspapers had a tremendous influence on the electorate, but the main milestones were still laid at the meetings. Any party or public association, thought, etc., rested on a strong speaker.
Modern media have much more tools than ordinary newspaper pages. We are talking, first of all, about the potential of entertainment shows, although, in general, this is also yesterday. But don’t you notice how “Dom-2” is able to put values ​​in your head? And although it does not lay the foundation, because its creators are motivated by something else - the commercial process and the creation of an exciting tool for entertainment, such approaches are also possible. After all, in the show the viewer does not just read an article, not live material. He sees a real person in real life conditions and sympathizes with him.

Social networks and the Internet that are developing today have even greater potential. It is not surprising that almost all Western developments in this area are constantly experimenting not with quantity, but with format. An example of this is the war between several blogging platforms, Twitter, Facebook.com (the Western analogue of Vkontakte.ru), Livejournal. If the Livejournal service professes the format of long, public commandments, Twitter has gone towards short micro-messages - statuses. And although social networks are not media, or rather, this is not their primary function, the situation itself is very informative from the point of view of the example.

This contradicts the original idea of ​​journalism and the philosophy of information that a person is primarily interested in fact. Of course, the fact is important, because the message is built on it. But today the main issue is the presentation of information. Simplification allows you to make it even more accessible, which can be used for public political or propaganda purposes.

Russian media and society
In modern Russia in the field of information there are a number of problems that can be identified. However, they are rather more related to the problems of society itself - the absence of a clear vector of development.
However, Russian media have great mobilization potential. This is manifested in the fact that in Russia the lion’s share of the largest sites is concentrated in the hands of the state. The disadvantage is that this journalism, for the most part, works using old technologies.

The communist past leaves a certain imprint on the development of the media. An example of this can be the attitude of people towards Channel One: society is clearly divided into those who watch it and those who clearly do not believe it. There is a very small stratum of those who are truly captivated by television. This could be achieved through the development of new formats of communication with the audience and greater borrowing of Internet resources, because it is important to develop people’s trust in the media. Trust is important because it is what allows the main messages to be carried out quietly and smoothly: the fight against corruption, patriotism, the focus of the masses on success and other stimulating factors.

In the West, a fairly popular format is when famous public figures purposefully “condescend” to the crowd in order to get the maximum effect from presenting themselves in an unusual, entertaining way. Prince Harry goes to Iraq to visit the British garrison, as a private citizen, American politicians come to a comical and humiliating show. This suggests that Western media technologies are still superior to Russian ones. Because they understand the importance of accessible formats. However, extreme passion for this format can be more detrimental than beneficial. Therefore, it is important to master the golden mean, which has not yet been mastered in Russia, but, we hope, will soon be studied and accepted for practical work.

Today, information gives unprecedented success or mercilessly destroys, and the one who owns it owns the world. It is difficult to argue with the fact that the influence of the media on modern society is radically different from past centuries. Newspapers, magazines, radio and television are capable of imposing a certain opinion and even a model of behavior.

A colorful example is the print media of the past Soviet era, when editorials, public debunkings and revelations were a huge success and were disastrous for those who were ridiculed on the pages of the newspaper. But honorary participants in newspaper debates, those workers and activists who managed to get on the pages of newspapers in laudatory odes, become stars on a local or national scale.

The role of the media in human life

If we talk about the role of the media in the life of a modern person, it is worth mentioning separately the constant influence. Newspapers, magazines and news impose the sad events of our time, talk about fires, murders and scams, while at the same time the lighter tabloid press, glossy magazines or entertainment programs that gradually fill the airwaves of radio and television are actively offered. Contemporaries involuntarily come to the conclusion, why read and listen to complex information when there are fun, funny and fascinating articles about stars or ordinary people.

Thus, society and the media are closely interconnected, since the former gives rise to the latter and subsequently cannot do without it. The initial task of the media is to cover current events and inform the population, however, depending on the type and form of information, its role and influence may change. If negative events in our country are presented against the backdrop of even greater problems in other countries, traditionally our own problems are perceived easier and not so destructive. A similar principle was actively used in Soviet times.

The influence of the media on society

Can society survive without media? Hardly. The role of the media in our lives is so great that without newspapers, magazines and television, a person will go back several years and will remain completely unaware of events in the world. Therefore, it is worth thinking about the influence of the media on a person’s life, and therefore choose the highest quality media that are not influenced by extraneous factors, for example, politics, economic influence. Fortunately, from the entire array of information you can always find decent and high-quality information, and from dozens of newspapers, honest and fair information, in which all events are covered accurately, quickly and unbiasedly. True, it will take a long time to search for such media, because many of them are under the direct influence of political or economic forces.

Introduction 3

1 The role of the media in modern

Russian society 5

2 Relevance of media functions in modern conditions 12

3 Mass media as channels of culture 20

Conclusion 25

List of used literature 27

Introduction

The media are one of the most powerful tools for shaping social space in the modern world.

The means of mass communication play a significant role in the political life of society, having a direct relation to its life and performing reproductive (representing politics through radio, television and the press) and creative (creative) functions.

A pressing issue at the present stage remains that the main function of the media institution in Russia is to articulate the interests of media owners and inform audiences about current events, including political ones. Of course, real objectivity in the presentation of information materials is still a long way off, but even the most respected media in the world could not achieve this (as we saw recently with the example of coverage of the war in Iraq). It is much more important that the main function of the media in Russia has become exactly what a media institution should have - information.

This explains the choice of the topic of the course work “Functions of the media and their relevance in modern conditions”

The purpose of the study is to analyze the functions of the media and their relevance.

To achieve this goal, the following tasks were formulated and sequentially considered:

♦ study the main functions of the media and their influence on the formation

public opinion;

♦ analyze the role and place of the media in the general system of modern culture.

The object of the study is the media and their functions

The subject of the study is the role and significance of the functions of the media at the present stage of development.

The main research methods used in the course work: systemic-structural, comparative-legal method, etc.

In developing the methodological principles of the study, the works of the following authors were used: V. V. Voroshilov, Ya. N. Zasursky,

T.V. Naumenko, E.P. Prokhorov and many others.

The structure of the course work is subordinated to the solution of the main goals and objectives and consists of an introduction, three chapters, and a conclusion.

1 The role of the media

in modern Russian society

The media are tools for the formation of social space in the modern world. The structure of everyday knowledge is largely determined by the mass media, although the knowledge obtained with their help is as fleeting and illusory as the illusory images appearing on the screen. Through the press, radio, and television, knowledge of the facts of reality comes, which causes the activity of human thought, creates the prerequisites for assimilating a theoretical worldview and consolidating it with the help of new facts.

Mass communication complements people's direct life experiences. Today, when the quality of information technologies and their use increasingly determine the nature of society, the issue of the relationship between society and the media is of particular importance.

With the development of informatization of Russian society, mass communications are beginning to have an increasingly tangible impact on various spheres of social life, in particular, on the political consciousness and behavior of the population.

The means of mass communication play a significant role in the political life of society, having a direct relation to its life and performing reproductive (representing politics through radio, television and the press) and creative (creative) functions. The penetration of the media into the political life of society is extremely multifaceted.

The media, taken as a whole, play various socio-political roles, one or another of which, depending on a certain number of typical socio-political situations, acquires special social significance. This can be the role of an organizer, unifier, consolidator of society, its educator. They can also play a disintegrating, separating role.

Over the past 15 years, the media in Russia has undergone significant changes. As they developed, they acquired various functions, and, accordingly, their influence on the political process changed. We can say that it was during this time that a complete transformation of the Soviet media-political system into a new, Russian one took place. The transformation took place in 4 stages, each of which was characterized by a unique combination of the role and functions of the media institution in Russian society.

The first period is conventionally called the period of politicization of the mass media (from April 1985 to July 1990, the adoption of the USSR law on mass media). After the April 1985 plenum of the CPSU Central Committee of the Soviet Union, the role of the media in the political life of Soviet society changed dramatically, they were granted a certain freedom. The media were used to support the reformist initiatives of M.S. Gorbachev and the neutralization of the conservative-minded part of the Soviet elite. The media community initially received minor freedom, which, increasing over time, gave it the opportunity to play a “political game” with, figuratively speaking, the Russian government, often subordinating it to its will and giving advantages to those groups that were oriented toward supporting the media. But then, in the mid-80s, this trend was just beginning to be visible.

An important component of the process of politicization of mass consciousness were the congresses of people's deputies, which turned out to be a huge soap opera that fascinated the whole country so much that the streets became empty. At this stage of development of the Russian media, they received a certain independence (but not financial) and the opportunity to influence management and personnel decisions in the highest echelon of power. The media community has shown the authorities that only relying on it can facilitate the adoption of many management decisions by providing these decisions with public support.

The main function of the media at that time was a mobilization function. The main subject of mobilization was M. Gorbachev and his entourage, and the key word denoting changes was “glasnost”. The most important subject of mobilization was the “democratic” opposition to M. Gorbachev and the political course he pursued.

The role of both the entire community and individual journalists turns out to be very important, and the authority of their opinion is sometimes higher than the authority of the top officials of the state. Criticizing the current situation in the political and socio-economic spheres of society, they, looking optimistically into the future and conveying their optimism to the masses, were able to sharply increase the circulation of their publications (for print media) and audiences (for television channels).

The second period of the existence of the Russian media is the so-called “golden age” (1990 - early 1992), when the media had already begun to gain independence, remaining in the conditions of complex social transformations a natural ally of the “modernist” part of the government, and, above all, B.N. Yeltsin. At this time, the first independent publications appeared (for example, Nezavisimaya Gazeta), the methods of presenting information material changed (introduction of “live broadcasts”, separation of information and commentary in news reports, etc.).

At the same time, many media outlets, even despite the often desperate criticism of the authorities, take advantage of its benefits, for example, purchasing paper at fixed prices, preferential rent for premises, etc. Print media circulation is reaching unprecedented levels. Journalism in general is becoming more personalized and “closer to the people,” and the politicization of the masses is intensifying. The media are becoming an instrument of political struggle (primarily for the group that has accumulated around Boris Yeltsin).

Since that time, the media community, relying on the ability to manipulate the agenda and the support of the public, begins attempts to dictate its terms to the political elite.

The main function of the media became the function of articulating opinions and the mobilization function, and the main subject of mobilization was Boris Yeltsin, and the opposition had much less access to the media space.

The third period of functioning of the Russian media is the stage of media commercialization, which lasted from the beginning of 1992 to the end of 1995 (approximately until the 1995 State Duma elections). The main milestones of this stage are:

1. The time of political confrontation and the first economic difficulties

Mass media (beginning of 1992 - October 1993), characterized by the increasing role of the regional press, the first attempts by the central government to take control of the leading media, a reduction in the circulation of the largest publications, and, as a consequence, large losses of the central publications.

2. Time of relative stabilization (October 1993 – end of 1995),

characterized by a decreasing role of politicized and increasing role of commercial media (the era of the heyday of commercial publications), the most notable feature of which is the information war of the authorities and the journalistic community, which covered the first Chechen war, which in general was lost by the authorities, which once again showed the power of the media in managing public an opinion that the authorities took full advantage of at the next stage of the functioning of the Russian media.

A feature of this period is the continued use of the political influence of the media, however, unlike the previous period, the media receive new private owners who begin to use the possibility of influencing the media resource on public opinion, which leads the overwhelming number of publications to the loss of independence and their transformation into an instrument, first of all, economic, and then political struggle.

At this stage, the media continued the secondary socialization of society, now functioning according to new social laws.

And finally, the fourth period of the functioning of the media in Russia is the stage of approval of the new media political system (late 1995 - to the present). The media political system in this case should be considered as a symbiosis of the media community with political power. Throughout the entire period, there were enough conflicts between the media and the authorities, sometimes lost by the Russian authorities, but as a result the authorities took a dominant position in relation to the media.

The media-political system is formed as an institution that provides the authorities with a set of instruments of political pressure both on society as a whole and on individual political subjects.

This stage is divided into two parts. The first part lasted from the end of 1995 to mid-1996, when the main electronic and print media, concentrated in the hands of the “oligarchs,” “secured” Boris Yeltsin’s victory in the presidential elections of 1996. After his victory, the “oligarchs” who controlled the media used them to fight with each other in various information wars, for example, related to the auction for the sale of a large block of shares in the state holding Svyazinvest.

The main feature of the fourth period of the functioning of the media in Russia was the ability to exert significantly more effective pressure on the socio-economic and political environment than the Russian authorities, in general, could achieve. The media community has sometimes become a more important player in the political field than the government institutions themselves. Thanks to the increasing role of journalists and individual publications, using sophisticated information strategies and mechanisms for manipulating public opinion, the media have become the most important player in the political and economic field.

In the eyes of public opinion, they claimed the status of not the “fourth”, but the “first” power. But in reality they were instruments of more serious social actors - oligarchs, financial and industrial groups, regional “barons”, etc.

Over time (by the beginning - mid-2000), the authorities began to be burdened by their position of “playing on the sidelines,” and then qualitative changes took place in the Russian media space.