Media Consumption and its Connection with the Values of Russian Audience

Student: Shanaeva Irina

Faculty: Faculty of Media Communications

Educational Programme: Master

Year of Graduation: 2014

ABSTRACTFor master dissertation by I. Shanaeva on"Media consumption and its connection with the values of the Russian audience"The problem of this research consists in the lack of study of the connection between the nature of media consumption and audience values of different regions of Russia. The relevance of this work is determined by the growing importance of media in the socialization process and the lack of studies of the Mass Media influence on the audience values in Russia. Thus, the purpose of this work is to study the relationship between the nature of media consumption and audience values in different regions of Russia. The objectives of the research include studying the existing Russian experience in similar researches, identifying the main characteristics of media consumption of urban and rural population of Russia, revealing audience’s core values on Schwartz’s model, validation and study nature of the relationship between the analyzed factors. The object of this study is the audience’s media consumption, and the subject of the research is connection of media consumption to the values of the audience.In this paper we put forward several hypotheses:•      There is a relationship between media consumption and the basic values of the audience. The author suggests that the consumption of media reinforces existing value systems of the audience.•      There are no significant differences in the nature of the relationship “media consumption - values audience” in urban and rural audiences.•      There is an inverse relationship between the rate of consumption of entertainment media and the degree of commitment to the values of Conservation.Theoretical and empirical methods are used to implement the study.To collect information we used empirical research method: in-depth interviews. Thus, the empirical base of the research consists of semi-structured interviews conducted by HSE Media Research Laboratory research project “Transformation of the Russian TV consumption in terms of new media platforms» in the Cocksoviy village of Rostov region in 2013, in Ugory village in 2012. We also used in-depth interviews collected during the first phase of the pilot study in Moscow in 2014 and the results of our study in a rural area of North Ossetia- Alania and in Vladikavkaz city.Also during processing of the obtained data, the method of comparison of media consumption and valuable orientations in various groups of respondents was used.The study identified the main trends in the nature of media consumption among urban and rural population. The following hypotheses were confirmed:•           There are no significant differences in the nature of the relationship “media consumption – audience’s values” in urban and rural areas.•           There is an inverse relationship between the rate of consumption of entertainment media and the degree of commitment to the values of conservation.Hypothesis about media consolidation of audience’s existing value system partially verified.Directions for further research: for a more detailed analysis of the relationship between media consumption and values, it is requ

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