Attention, Trust and Power in Russian “New Media”

Abstract

The subject of this paper’s research is transformation of power in the Russian new media. The shift from traditional media to “new media” has, after all, drastically changed the structure of media power – instead of the broadcasting model, “from one to many”, a network model is established: “from many to many”. Social media generate a model of population’s communication and information “self-service” with a branched system of redistributing attention. Our research aims to identify how attention and trust of the young Russian audience transforms within network interactions. A complicated social tool like media power, after all, relies on a very fragile foundation – human attention. With audience’s attention you have the media power, without this attention you don’t. As we all remember so well, the power of “traditional” media was based on extremely solid social practices – the habits of reading and watching television built into the life rhythm of Soviet and Russian citizens. Nowadays, however, media consumption practices of the generations in the age range from 15 to 34 years change quickly depending on the dominant network technology. We rely on sociological studies of young audience’s media behavior and its network preferences to explore how its attention and trust transform. Contemporary research uses the criterion of “involvement” to measure attention, which is a part of the analytical toolbox of editorial metrics. We are going to rely on Mediator metrics developed by Mail.ru. Another valuable basis for our research was provided by results of the monitoring conducted by VCIOM, Mediastandard, Levada Center, Deloitte and Zircon in 2018–2019.