Home – Home – Jornals – Humanitarian sciences in Siberia 2016 number

The article studies the features of the Russian media preferences, the place and role of reading in their structure, causes of transformations of contemporary social practices over the past quarter of the century. The use of formal logic and comparative-historical methods of research helped to identify cause-and-effect chains in studying the changes in attitudes toward the book and reading in correlation with logic and specificity of processes of radical modification of the Russian media consumption at the turn of the XX-XXI centuries. Technological transformation of the means for transferring information contributed to forming digital communications’ segment of the expanding media space, influenced the media interactions of contemporaries. The article provides a brief categorial analysis of the concept “media consumption”, considers different interpretations of this definition as the use of information products, type of human activities, lifestyle, social and communication phenomenon. Based on the analysis of the results of all-Russian and local case studies as well as statistical data the author shows dynamics and peculiarities of media space changes, trends of media activity and contemporaries’ preferences; determines differences in media consumption of urban and rural residents; explains transformations of media preferences of contemporaries in the last quarter of the century. The article shows the role of media consumption in the life of a man and society, changes in its essential characteristics over the last quarter of the century (duration, intensity, dynamism); investigates the individual / group involvement in the process of selection and mastering media platforms and content. The author examines peculiarities of modifications of reading in the structure of media consumption of the Russians at the turn of the XX-XXI centuries; analyzes different viewpoints on the role of reading as a form of cultural activity of the population, its place in the modern media landscape. Reasons for decline of reading the traditional printed media and involvement of the population into electronic social practices are revealed. Forecasts of further development of traditional printed and audiovisual component of media space, reading and media consumption modifications are given on the basis of the assessment of recent trends in media consumption.