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Iosif M. Dzyaloshinskiy, Maria A. Pilgun УДк 81'23
ENTERTAITMENT MEDIA AND PoLITics:
Russian C0NTENT
The study showed that composition of audience groups and the ratio among them has transformed substantially in recent years. Requirements of contemporary audience (including information, entertainment, communication, etc.) have grown significantly in comparison with the recent past. Share of political content in the entertainment sphere is increasing steadily. Although institutionalized groups and associations with the help of professional journalists contribute and distribute the biggest part of political media content, the increasingly big part of it is produced by users themselves. a new classification of media consumer types was proposed.
Keywords: content, audience, media consumer types, entertainment media.
и.М. Дзялошинский, М.А. пильгун
развлекательные МЕДиА и политикА: российский контент
В статье представлены результаты исследования, которое показало, что состав аудиторных групп и их соотношение в современном медиапространстве в последние годы существенно трансформировались. Потребности современной аудитории (в информации, развлечении, коммуникации и пр.), значительно выросли по сравнению с недавним прошлым. Политический контент все активнее включается в сферу развлечений. Хотя основным субъектом производства и распространения политического медиаконтента по-прежнему выступают институционализированные группы и объединения, пользующиеся услугами профессиональных журналистов, все большая часть контента производится самими пользователями. Предложена новая классификация типов потребителей медиаконтента.
Ключевые слова: контент, аудитория, типы потребителей медиаконтента, развлекательные СМИ.
In the past decades it is widely admitted in Russia that the contemporary mass media is progressively less focused on the public interest and pays more attention to the private one, which is to a large extent determined by market nature of the economy.
Extension of information consumption boundaries is the most important trait of interaction between audience and media today. Previously the biggest part of media content was consumed during leisure hours but today the rapid growth of mobile media popularity results in the fact that a consumer can continuously be in the information flow and this expectedly has affected the political content.
Since Aristotle politics was considered to be a grave matter, which requires knowledge, skills and certain mental set. However, the Postmodernism made substantial adjustments to the politics concept: politics became a show in some of its aspects. And one of the reasons is growth of entertainment origins in the mass media activities.
Politics in the mass media increasingly resemble a carnival, where instead of real people we watch a continuous string of masks, which are usually very ugly and outrageous. And of course at a carnival no one is responsible for their actions.
There are many politicians in Russia, which have been in the politics for many years only because the electorate considers them to be funny clowns. However, the mass media also constantly present them in this role, adding to their popularity. Quite often the clownish start is linked to a claim of a certain protest - either political or social. But this protest has, as a rule, populist-carnival nature. And it is exactly this type of people become popular in the collective consciousness and claim for real participation in political activities.
To interpret this situation scientifically we need to find answers to the next questions: Why entertainment became such a popular form for self-fulfilment of most people? Why politicians so readily participate in a show? Why mass media so willingly became clowns?
This article presents the results of research aimed to find answers the following questions: what is happening to the audience of contemporary mass media; what is the preferred type of content and why; how do mass content producers react to the interests of audience.
In a form of hypothesis we suggested that the higher is the human well-being and the more stable is the relevant sustainability of social order, the less is the interest to politics and the higher is the interest to entertaining content. In response to this trend the mass content producers double the efforts to improve the content quality and attractiveness, because only this type of content attracts audience, and this audience becomes merchandise that can be sold to advertisers. At the same time, politicians need to strengthen links with electorate and this impels the politicians to embed their messages in entertainment content and become showmen.
Method. Participants.
To probe the hypothesis a research was undertaken, which included survey of residents living in large, medium-sized and small towns of Russia, analysis of mass media content and interviews with experts. A 500 respondent survey was conducted (See Table 1).
Research Instruments:
To capture the data the survey was conducted on the platform UNIPARK. Today Unipark is part of the company QuestBack (former Globalpark). Method Questbacks internet is based on the principle of EFS-review. EFS-review is based on MySQL, PHP, Apache and Linux and corresponds with the information center Questback's.
After the survey all the data were exported to the program Excel, where they were analyzed. The data was in a form of an array, where each row contained all the answers of a respondent, representing the number corresponding to the number of an answer. Thus, it was possible to carry out calculation of the average values based on one or more parameters, such as age, education level, occupation, etc.
Formula:
To make data calculations the formula counting the average value in the specified range, at the same time specifying some criteria with the relevant ranges of data was used.
one of the criteria was that the value should be greater than zero, so it was possible to eliminate the error in the calculations due to the blank and missed answers (which were coded as 0). the values ranged from 1 to 5.
one of the parameters was used as the other criteria, according to which the study was conducted.
results and discussion
what is happening to the audience of contemporary mass media? The presented research shows that Russian audience should be divided into two types: users and consumers. users search the information they need and are involved in content creating. consumers are those who use the offered content thoughtlessly, without any searching or participating. According to our information, the approximate ratio between users and consumers is 20 to 80.
the first important characteristic of users is a real, active involvement in the process of communication. this involvement is manifested in deliberate attitude towards the communication act; selective perception (memorizing, understanding, assessment) of material and its parts; realization (aftereffect) of the information in the conscience and behavior.
the second important characteristic is objectively available abilities of either direct contact the communication initiator, or deferred, but actually possible feedback communication.
today's consumer as a communication subject type is only a receiver of the offered information and has neither will nor ability to get involved in substantial contact with the communication initiator. [See Dzyaloshinsky & Pilgun 2012; Dzyaloshinsky 2012; Pilgun 2008].
Belonging to either user or consumer groups is determined according to our data by, firstly, social role of an individual and, secondly, by their chosen life strategy. As for a social role all media process participants can be divided into three categories:
corporative audience that includes various type of people who make decisions and able to directly influence the media scene situation.
Elite audience includes opinion shaping leaders and experts that are authoritative people (usually those are representatives of engineering and humanitarian intellectuals), whose assessments and opinions influence assessments and opinions of other media audience people. Mass audience includes so-called ordinary people.
the corporate audience is, according to our research, not great in number but extremely influential audience that views the mass media neither as an autonomous institute of civil society and nor as a specific, relatively independent information business, but exclusively as an informational and promotional appendant to authorities. Representatives of this group have been always convinced that journalists' only mission is to help the authorities to solve their problems. thus it can be said that this audience either consciously or unconsciously is willing to make the mass media become a crossbreed between an executive briefing service and a propaganda tool.
The elite audience is highly interested in having access to a great variety of information. It has almost equal interest to political, economical, social and cultural issues. In whole the elite audience reports average satisfaction with the level of information availability. By their assessment the least available is the information about abroad events.
Mass audience is also not completely satisfied with the quality of the provided content. Later we will return to this issue, and now we can list the main, according to the survey, reasons of audience dissatisfaction with the mass media:
1. Complaints against information: not enough of useful information; information is boring;
2. Complaints against journalists' work: distortion of facts; imposing of opinions; exacerbating situation; low level of professionalism; usage of materials from other media and the Internet.
3. Complaints against a publication, a channel: too much of advertising; political prejudice; overpoliticized.
In terms of life strategy (or, in other words - life style, life model), it is about set of basic values that determines perception of one's own actions and actions of others, as well as of information from outside.
Today there are three distinctly dominating strategies and three complementary
ones.
The dominant strategies include: Wellbeing strategy, life success strategy and self-actualization strategy.
The complementary strategies include: emotional experience strategy (strategy of gag, strategy of impressions), consumption (glamour) strategy and contemplation strategy.
Dominant strategies:
People with wellbeing strategy are employees payed for the time spent at work according to wages scale. The core of this model is the life wellbeing perceived as family's abandunce and living standards of «keeping up with the Joneses». The only aim of work is earning, which makes it possible to live a purposeful life in the free from work time. Responsibilities are painful necessity that has to be done in order to have a good leisure time. In this living model people do not work for the good of business. Instead they impose requirements to business while caring little for its success, because they can sell their labor somewhere else.
wages in a sense have little relevance to what and how a person does. The wages are paid for the time spent at work, as a pay-off. Information requirements: entertainment information (movies, shows, amazing phenomenon); time-structuring information (crossword puzzles, astrology); consumer information (gardening, household tips, announcements); modeling information (ideas for free time, models of daily behavior). The news information is perceived not as necessary for business, but as part of a show or a topic for communication and discussion in referential groups.
1.2. People professing the life success strategy are mainly managers, experts, self-employed and those without their own ownership share. Success in the today's world is measured by financial well-being and high social status. As a rule, they are professionals. It is indicative that this type of workers are paid not for the time spent at work, according to wages scale, rather they are hired individually, on the basis of qualifications and
prospects of their future contribution to business. Their services are paid in accordance with the actual benefits they have provided.
As for free time, the success-oriented people consider the idea of free time to be
absurd.
their information requirements are focused on professional and business information. They are also interested in the status-related information about the adopted currently consumption standards - clothes, interior, car brands and types, vacation places and their prestige level. News information is required for the orientation in the current socio-economic situation and decision-making.
there is a clear correlation between the level of well-being and interest in political issues [see Petukhov & Barash 2013].
1.3. the self-actualization strategy is supported by people who seek self-actualization in their own business and take full responsibility for its success. For the most part they are entrepreneurs. It also includes representatives of the intellectuals that focused on self-motivated creative activities and implementation of intellectual projects limited only by imagination of authors.
work is the main priority. for them there is no difference between working and leisure time. free time matters little to nothing. Such people are never free from work since they have devoted themselves to it, are totally in and the work became the only meaning and condition of their life. they feel responsible for the business success and failures. this attitude provides the sense of freedom and independence.
free time is the time devoted to meaningful activities.
Information requirements: professional information - situation in the economic or cultural spheres; socio-economic information - news about markets, prices and economic indicators of interest, attitude and actions of the authorities in regards of a certain business sphere; intellectual information - information about main trends in the cultural sphere of society; guiding information about quality and safe for business recreation satisfying their needs and adequate to their status.
Complementary strategies:
Emotional experience strategy attracts people, who believe that vivid experiences are the essence of life. these people are stunts, bikers, extreme sports fans, inveterate travelers. Both work and leisure time is subject to the same imperative: emotional intensity. Life success is perceived as unique emotional experience. circle of contacts is quite narrow and consist of the like adventurers.
the increasingly big number of Russian people adopts the consumption strategy. consumption becomes the meaning of life. life's completeness is indirectly associated with the process of purchases, transactions, or other money and goods operations. critics of the strategy argue that within its framework human relations are replaced by relations between things; even thoughts and feelings are replaced by things and there are never enough of them.
followers of contemplation strategy reject active life position, success and consumption and make the main objective of their lives contemplation of nature and art beauties.
Very often the contemplation strategy develops into a strategy of search for new, sometimes very exotic, forms of spiritual self-improvement.
Ratio analysis (according to statistics, population surveys, questionnaires and focus groups) suggests that representatives of self-actualization strategy amount to 5 - 7 % of the working population; representatives of life success strategy make 15 to 20 %; the representatives of emotional experience strategy compose 10 %. The most numerous (up to 60 %) is the group of representatives focused on wellbeing strategy.
Interesting that the majority of respondents evaluate their own media competency as high.
According to the Public Opinion Foundation almost a third of respondents are confident that they can recognize illegal Internet content.
The answers to the next question are also very interesting: Where and to whom will respondents refer in case the accuracy of the information received from the media is questionable? It turned out that during last years the number of people that will not refer anywhere to check the information has rapidly increased (from 1% in 2009 up to 20% in 2011). And even if one would decide to check the information they will refer to Internet, though understanding, that this source of information is not reliable.
Audience attitude towards media content and its creators: question of trust
Level of trust to the most sources of information has been reducing recently: And first of all it relates to television - both central (from 75% to 69%) and local (from 67% to 56%). Reduced is the number of people convinced in trustfulness of central and regional press (from 52 % to 42 %) and central (from 45 % to 35 %) and local radio (from 39 % to 30 %). The degree of confidence is growing towards only one source of information -Internet (from 27 % to 35 %). The highest loyalty index belongs to the central television (45 points). Local television is on the second place (40). The third place with a significant margin belongs to central radio (30). These are followed by Internet (28), central and regional press (26) and local radio (24). The least is the audience level of trust to the foreign media (-4 points) [URL: http://wciom.ru/index.php?id=515&uid=111297].
As for the Internet, we asked regular users the next question: «What sources of information about the events in Russia and in the world you trust more - traditional media (newspapers, radio, television) or news and information sites on the Internet?" The results show that only 23% of the «internauts» trust more the online news, while 53% of respondents prefer news in traditional media. Almost a quarter (24 %) of users was undecided with which of the information sources they trust more - Internet or traditional media channels.
This means that although users admit the possibility of obtaining an objective picture of the political situation in Russia based on the Internet materials, still the majority of them at the time the studies were conducted were not ready to trust this information to the same extent as traditional media (table 2).
Those people who claimed trusting the Internet were asked additional open question: «Why do you trust Internet news and information sites? " More often than not the responders answered that they consider the Internet to be a more objective and independent source of information, rather than traditional media (7%) other 4% of respondents explained trust to the Internet by mistrust to the traditional media and by availability of diversified and full information in the web.
«Internauts», which trust more the traditional media, were asked an open question about the reasons behind it. It turned out that their main argument was mistrust to the
Internet as a source of information (22 %). In addition to this, traditional news sources were said to be of a greater availability (12 %) and more customary (7 %) Some of them (2 %) explained their position by official status of the traditional media [Internet.ru. Sociological contours 2009].
As for the audience attitude towards media content creators, it was well demonstrated in the responses of the focus-group participants, which were asked to describe in two or three sentences a newspaper or magazine, which they often read, as if it was a man. Here are just a few of the descriptions.
older man, dependent on his son, boring, serious, but in straw shoes, dusty, grayish, absurd.
Old maid, elderly lady, "oldy", exhausted, boring, trying to keep path with the youth, loves to lecture, strict, sometimes in a business dress, unsatisfied.
woman, 50 years old. unmarried - trying to educate. Always wearing the same strict dress, but sometimes puts on a fancy bow. catches and speaks out something, strict, cold.
the main feature of all these descriptions is a substandard, comic nature of the attitude to the mass media. they are not perceived as opinion shaping leaders or even anything significant: «He is not someone you can trust with serious matters»...
what content attracts mass audience and why?
Information requirements of the Russian population arise from the need to provide realization to various psychological functions.
The function of social orientation is based on the audience need of information for orientation in the world of social phenomena.
The participation function in the formation of public opinion is based on the need of the society members to be not only passive recipients of information, but to actively participate in the information processes of society, for instance, in formation of a certain public opinion, which is manifested as feedback of different types.
The function of social identification is based on the need of a person to feel their belonging to some groups and dissociation from the other ones. Satisfaction of this need increases the sense of security and self-confidence of a person. Mass media provide virtually unlimited opportunities for recipient selection of their reference groups.
Contact function is associated with the need of an individual to establish contact with another person for self-expression and comparison of their views with the views of other people. Simultaneous perception of mass media messages by vast audience creates some kind of information community, which makes it easier to establish contact with unfamiliar people and to develop relations with familiar ones.
The function of self-assertion and cognition is reflected in the fact that media communications are perceived by recipients as direct or indirect support for their own ideas and views.
Utilitarian function of mass media communication is expressed by the fact that with the help of mass media people finds information with practical orientation and borrows effective models of behavior.
Emotional discharge function is carried out mainly through publications and broadcasts of entertainment nature. However, in some cases entertainment broadcasts
and publications produce a kind of narcotizing effect, sidetracking recipients in world of illusions, hedging them off from real and daily problems.
The surveyed population representatives demonstrated mostly actualized utilitarian function and emotional discharge function, which is very natural for the audience professing wellbeing strategy.
Less obvious are the interests of audience representatives implementing strategies of self-actualization and success, with their distinct aspiration to obtain reliable and accurate business information. In the opinion of respondents, they have to look for this kind of information reading almost each local publication - which requires significant amounts of time and the results are often not satisfying. So far there are no publications or TV broadcasts that could satisfy this type of the audience at least to some extent.
The function of participation in public opinion formation is «locked» to some extent. The selected strategy of local mass media organization directs members of society towards passive information perception and it results in the fact that social participation of population in the information processes is implemented through informal channels. while the information they provide is not subject to correction, and as a rule is much distorted, forming opposition moods among audience.
sources for information
In the process of information consumption (including the political) we can single out a few key points: receipt, verification, evaluation. whereas some sources are used to receive information, after that the information is usually verified in other sources, while assessment of its value and trustworthiness is defined in the process of contact with third-party sources.
For each sphere of the information there are different sources of receipt, verification and evaluation. Here we will identify seven of important for the audience spheres: family, health, education, household, politics, culture, recreation (entertainment). A person can perceive the information in one sphere automatically, in another - by comparing and in the third - critically. It all depends on the extent of topic importance and experience of a percipient. Besides, the choice of sources and preference of some sources over other helps to define the vector of interest of the studied groups of population.
within this model there are three style of information perception: automatic, comparing and critical.
In the process of focused interviews respondents were asked to range the spheres of information in accordance with their importance and to determine for each of them the sources of information receipt, verification and evaluation. Table 3 shows the results of this survey.
It should be noted that the politics sphere was ranked only the fifth by its degree of importance for respondents. Here is the sequence of spheres by their degree of importance: family, health, education, household, politics, culture, recreation (entertainment). Only for «politics» and «culture» categories the mass media turned out to be a "clean» source of information. In the «politics» sphere the mass media is also a source of information verification (in different publications and channels). Here we define the comparing information style. Only in the «culture» sphere the respondents trust media both delivery of information and its evaluation, actually borrowing the last. Here we can note the automatic perception of information. For the rest of spheres the respondents focus on
critical perception of information, actively using both formal and informal channels for receipt, verification and evaluation of the information.
Analysis of responses to the question about the main sources of information once again proved the iteratively documented pattern: television is the most significant source of information for Russians. Further in descending order: newspapers, radio, friends, familiar and colleagues and on the last place - magazines (table 4). Besides, this hierarchy has almost no correlation with characteristics of respondents or their places of residence. In certain groups sometimes magazines swap places with other sources of information (friends, familiar, colleagues; the Internet; rumors, gossip).
As for television, it is primarily regarded as a translator of feature films, informational, entertainment and music programs (table 5).
Uneven reduction of TV usage in different groups is changing the composition of television audience, its sex-age structure. Each passing year increases the proportion of women and viewers aged over 55. the main and obvious reason for these changes is the competition of the Internet and other new media over time and attention of the audience. According to the TNS electronic measurements of TV watching, Internet users watch television almost one hour less (167 min. a day) than nonusers (260 min.). Young people are more involved in the Internet use, rather than the representatives of the senior generations; men are slightly more involved than women1. This largely explains the disproportionate decrease of TV usage and changes in the television audience composition.
Bulk of the audience (about 90 %) is still attracted by 20 federal TV channels, with «the big three» channels (Channel one, Rossiya 1, NTV) holding 46% of audience. The three largest commercial television networks (STS, TNT and REN-TV) cumulatively hold 20% of TV audience and 23% are divided between 14 niche terrestrial channels. Also for the audience attention compete about 250 non-terrestrial thematic TV channels, distributed by agents of cable, satellite and IP television (8.6 % TV audience) Significantly smaller volume of audience gather local terrestrial broadcasters (cumulatively less than 3 % ).
competition between television and new media determines the following long-term trends in Russian TV usage:
reduction of the aggregate time of TV usage;
changes in the socio-group structure of television audience related to the disproportional reduction of TV usage in different audience groups (increase of women and elderly people proportion);
increase in the «non-linear» consumption of television content through new digital platforms (primarily via the Internet), which is not «taken into account» by the existing measurement system of TV watching and either not monetized (illegal downloading), or is taken into account and monetized as part of Internet consumption (Internet-portals, offering access to licensed content). Respectively, the advertisement budgets flow from television to the Internet.
1 Source: ACVI «Television in eyes of viewers», 2011 (survey of urban population of age 15 and older). Op. cit.: Industry report «Television in Russia. Status, trends and prospects for development», 2012.
With respect to the radio audience, all-Russia radio audience measurements (VCIOM) show that about 40% of Russian people do not listen to the radio, and in the small towns and rural areas this number is higher and amounts to 44-45 %.
In respect of print media, the audience of the most readable and influential printed daily newspapers, such as Vedomosti, Izvestiya, Kommersant, Moskovsky Komsomoletz, RBK-daily, Rossiyskaya gazeta ranges from 79.7 (RBK-daily) up to 1213. 1 (Rossiyskaya gazeta) thousands of readers a day. Audience of weekly magazines (Dengi, Itogi, Kommersant-Vlast, Ogonek, Russkiy reporter, Finansy) is from 258.8 (Dengi) to 806.3 thousands of readers (Ogonek) (TNS Gallup Media. National Readership Survey. - URL: http://www.tns-global.ru/rus/data/ratings/press/index.wbp?press.action=search&press. regionId).
Hence the socio-political printed press is read by 0.4 % - 6.7 % of the country population. People spend an average of hour a day for reading newspapers and magazines (Kolomietz, 2010). Consumers of this information source are mainly people interested in receiving news, but for whom the Internet is yet to become the major source of the information. According to surveys, among readers of print media middle and top managers amount to only 5% (Crocus Consulting, 2010). According to expert survey of public relations professionals, in spite of the fact that the demand for the printing press dropped significantly, publishers do not reduce the number of runs, because their advertising budgets depend on this factor.
Considering today's Russian mass-media, we can state that it progressively becomes a mean for audience entertainment. Over the past five years the share of entertainment programs, movies and series in the broadcast of 16 federal channels has increased from 52 to 66 %. 23% of air time is assigned to movies. Since 2005 the percentage of series has doubled and amounts up to 21 %. Whereas the Channel One, Rossya 1, NTV, STS, TNT broadcast mainly domestic serials, while niche channels (DTV, TV3, Zvezda, Muz-TV) show as a rule foreign ones, states the publication. In fact political content takes less than 4% of air time on the Russian television ( http://www. gazeta.ru/news/lenta/2011/05/26/n_1855761.shtml ).
According to TNS Gallup Media, in 2012 with average share of the Channel One - 21.0, Rossiya - 17.0 , NTV - 13.5 , STS, 8.8 and TNT - 6.7, two channels - STS and TNT, according to their officially claimed concepts, are purely entertaining and form their broadcasting grid exclusively of movies, series, situation comedies, popular shows, comedy programs, games and reality TV shows. The leaders are followed by six channels of the «second-level» - REN-TV with share of 4.4; TVC - 2.9; TV-3 - 2.2; Domashniy - 1.9; Sport - 1.9 and DTV - 1.8. Here the ratio is already 50/50: Three channels - TV-3, Domashmiy and the DTV are promoted as entertainment television broadcasters. The most of relatively new specialized terrestrial and nonterrestrial channels - Muz-TV, MTV-Rossia, TU-1000. Russkote Kino, Russkiy Illusion, A-One TV, VH-i, Style TV, 2x2.
Shift of the scheduling toward the entertainment formats is also noticeable in broadcasts of leading nationwide (coverage of over 50% of the population) generalized channels - Channel One, Rossiya, NTV and REN-TV The total amount of socio-political broadcasting on average in 2012 amounted to a total of 17 %. Watching grids of television leaders are consistently filled with «easy» (games / entertainment / humor / leisure) content lacking any social importance. Furthermore, the traditional genres of socio-
political broadcasting, such as news, analytics, and documentary - on these channels are often transformed into infoteinment, or, downgrade and obtain features of «yellow» journalism that also contributes to the general trend.
The Russian newspaper industry also represents a vivid example of transformation of informational models towards the entertainment. Statistics confirms: Publications of yellow type and TV-guides, which concepts by definition have entertainment nature, are the absolute leaders in the market of daily and weekly periodicals.
According to Rospechat, in 2012 the most popular among Russian readers were the next newspapers: Argumenty i Fakty (14% of audience), Antenna-Telesem (8%), Moya Semya (6%), Zhizn (6%), Spid-Info (6%), Moskovsky Komsomoletz (5%). A sports publication the Sport-Ekspress took the eighth position (3 %). And only on the ninth place of the rating table is the first socio-political quality newspaper the Izvestiya (2% of the audience). The remaining high-quality newspapers barely reach 1 %.
The same trends are evident in the Russian radio segment. As of 2012, the share of news/talk radio stations on the market is only 18 %. In general the market is shared by radio stations of music formats, mainly these four: CHR (14 to 21 years audience), Hot AC (21-28 years), Soft speakers AC (28-42 years) and Oldies (42-49 years). Most of new projects on the radio market is created in the segment of niche music broadcasting, (e.g., radio station «KINO FM», which rotation consists of popular movies soundtracks) [Debre 1999].
For effective interaction with the mass media the skills of news making become crucial. News is a tool of attracting attention to a political event, a certain structure, political person or idea. The attracted attention should not be abstract, but leading to positive relationships, affecting increase in sales of goods or services, or establishment of authority in society.
Thus, we can conclude that the information and its distribution through a variety of mass media channels are well-established in the entertainment industry as a whole. Political content has little chances to be popular with the Russian audience unless it is included in an entertainment segment.
Relationship between entertainment media and politics in Russia recently are built in compliance with the two trends: (1) emergence of media resources, which represent the political content in entertaining form (NTV show «K Baryery!» with V. Solovyov, «Moment Istiny» with A. Karaulov, etc. ). Broadcasts, claiming the status of political analytics (as for instance the informative political show «Postscriptum» with Aleksey Pushkov) almost identically offer an entertainment version of political event interpretations.
(2) including of political content in entertainment media. Most actively this strategy is used by the leader of Liberal Democratic Party of Russia. V Zhirinovsky
[http://www.ldpr.ru/#leader]. V Zhirinovsky is a member of LDPR since 1989 and since 31th of March 1990, he is the president of Liberal Democratic Party of Russia. From the very beginning on the political stage of Russia V. Zhirinovsky took the position of a political leader with a provocative communication strategy. He naturally fits into any formats of entertainment media and that helps him to maintain stable position among the electorate up to this day. Rating of V. Zhirinovsky has been consistently high during all the 23 years of his political career.
conclusion
Relationship between entertainment media and politics in Russia today are defined by trends of inclusion of political content in traditional entertainment media.
The study showed that composition of audience groups and the ratio among them has transformed substantially in recent years.
It is proven that the existing audience models do not explain the complexity of the relationship between interacting within the frame of media scene initiators and recipients. A new classification of media consumer types was proposed, which helps to single out of the audience composition of the groups that differ both by social status and by life strategy.
Most of the surveyed representatives of different audience groups highly evaluate their own media-competence and are convinced that they are able to show discrimination in features of mass media and the produced media content. The study confirmed the stated in other works thesis on reduction of trust to the media in all of audience groups.
Requirements of contemporary audience (including information, entertainment, communication, etc.) have changed significantly in comparison with the recent past. Audience expects from media entertainment, trusted communications and heart-to-heart conversations, sense of stable and decent life, positive news. And this suggests the transformation of professional matrices, search for fundamentally different approaches to scheduling of political content.
In response to these needs the mass media increasingly interact with the field of entertainment. Because the entertainment content helps to collect maximum audience and then «sell» it to advertiser. In terms of market the mass-media is used as part of selling goods and services systems and in marketing strategies of manufacturers. Here the media is focused not so much on the political and cultural needs of a society, but rather on required by advertisers consumer needs of target audiences.
As a result the media becomes an organizing industry along with the process of content creating and distribution - delivery of advertising to consumers. To achieve the maximum efficiency the industry is merging the previously separated segments of mass media and entertainment. Electronic mass media start to play a special role because a strong manufacturing sector with recording studios, film studios, producing companies, TV enterprises, photo-services and other emerges to satisfy its needs. By creating relatively cheap content products, this sector reinforces the commercialization of media content. The economy based on consumption reasonably stimulates mass media movement towards the entertainment industry.
Secondly, due to development of technological progress emerge new consumption platforms and media delivery channels based on the digital mobile technologies, which provide new opportunities for the distribution of political content in an entertainment form.
Thus in the course of economic and social processes the modern mass-media becomes an integral part of the industry of recreation and entertainment and demonstrates certain changes in the media nature (first of all political), associated with both recreational function enhancements and direct participation in the entertainment industry.
Although institutionalized groups and associations with the help of professional journalists contribute and distribute the biggest part of political media content, the increasingly big part of it is produced by users themselves.
Amateur political journalism, which is actively developed in the Internet, triggers many questions so far. On the one hand, its influence on certain audience groups is already comparable to influence of the traditional media. On the other hand the low quality of content produced by amateur journalists makes these kind of journalism a phenomenon specific to certain niche groups.
References
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368 p.
Industry report «Television in Russia. Status, trends and prospects for development» (2012). ACVI «Television in eyes of viewers», 2011 (survey of urban population of age 15 and older). Moscow: MSU.
Internet.ru. Sociological contours. Moscow: Econ-Inform, 2009. - 140 p.
Crocus Consulting Russian middle class read news on the Internet and do not watch TV. (2013) - URL: http://www.korusconsulting.ru/defacto/release/october-2010/ labwork/ (15.08.2013).
Дзялошинский И.М. Коммуникационные процессы в обществе: институты и субъекты. - М.:АПК и ППРО, 2012. - 592 с.
Дзялошинский И.М., Пильгун М.А. Стратеги и тактики коммуникационного воздействия // Меди@льманах. 2012. № 5. - С. 6-16.
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Appendix
Respondent general characteristics
Table 1.
characteristics % of total number of
respondents
The place of residence
Moscow 39.2
Megapolis 24
Large City 14.4
Town 12.3
Village 10.1
Sex
Male 46.2
Female 53.7
Age
Up to 21 years 37.5
22 - 34 years 27.8
35 - 55 years 20.8
Over 55 years 13.9
Education
General secondary 3.8
College Degree 28
Higher education 31.3
Incomplete higher education (learning) 28.4
Have an academic degree 8.5
Type of activity
Industry (including transportation, communication, construction) 7.2
Agriculture 3.6
Trade, catering, housing and communal services, consumer services 5.5
Health, social welfare 4.5
Education 10.9
Culture 5.8
Crediting, finance and banking 5.4
Government department 3.8
Social organizations 4.3
Mass media 8.5
Retired pensioners 4.3
Students of higher and secondary educational institutions 19.8
Army, law enforcement bodies 4.2
Temporarily unemployed, housewives, people on care leave, etc. 5.1
Another sphere 7.1
Employment status
Senior Manager (director, deputy director, chief engineer, chief expert, officer, etc.) 9.7
Middle management (head of shop, head of the department, master, team leader, etc.) 25.9
Average worker (worker, clerk) 64.4
Table 2.
Distribution of responses to the question "What sources of information about the events in Russia and in the world you trust more - traditional media or sites on the Internet?"
Internet users in general Moscow Megapolis Large city small city Village
Traditional mass
53 40 42 60 62 63
media
Sites in the Internet 23 37 21 18 19 15
Were undecided 24 23 37 22 19 22
Table 3.
Summary table of information sources
category Receipt Verification Evaluation
1. Family Relatives Relatives, books Relatives, myself, books
Mass media (special Experts, relatives, myself
2. Health publications or columns), relatives Relatives, experts
3. Profession Experts, books Experts, books Experts, books
Advertising, relatives,
4. Household media (specialized publications or news) Myself, relatives Myself, relatives
5. Politics Mass media Experts, Mass media Books, relatives, myself
6. Culture Mass media Mass media, books Myself, Mass media
7. Recreation Advertising, friends Myself, friends Myself, friends
Table 4.
Assessment of mass media source importance (ranks)
sources of information Ranks
Television 1
Newpapers 2
Radio 3
Another source 4
Magazines 5
Table 5.
TV broadcasts that are popular with representatives of the population
(% of respondents in a raw)
Types of TV broadcasts Russian TV Regional TV City TV
Feature films 90.1 28.0 32.7
Informational 87.5 51.1 55.6
Entertainment, music broadcasts 74.3 21.1 24.8
Documentary films 36.5 10.3 8.0
Announcements, advertising 13.7 11.8 19.3
Other ( sports; children; historical; scientific, scientific and popular; about the nature, animals; military theme). 1.4 0.4 0.4
