The Subject-Object Field of the Russian Media Studies: the Metatheoretic Approach

Abstract

The article considers the specifics of the modern studies of the media and mass communications. It describes the possibility and the necessity of metatheoretic research in this field similarly to the studies in social sciences. The authors stress the need for analytical research aimed at conceptualizing the existing approaches to the media studies. The paper presents the methods and the results of the analysis of the dissertations in 10.01.10 — Journalism which belong to the period from 2012 to 2016. This period was chosen as a relevant one taking into account the necessity of studying the real state of the modern media research projects with a possibility of identifying certain dynamics of the researchers’ interest in the context of digitization, extension of communication space and transformation of sociocultural practices. The communication process scheme was taken as a basis of the empirical analysis. It includes a communicator, a channel of communication, its content, audience and communication effect and is completed by contextual factors of interaction. Taking into account the obtained empirical data, the study demonstrates the misbalance of the scholars’ attention to different elements of the communication process and the stress on separate elements of the mass communication process. It also points out the lack of studies dedicated to the modern media audience. The authors trace certain disproportion of the scientific knowledge structure about the media sphere, the lack of generalizations and also emphasize the difficulties in the description of the subject-object field of the media studies caused by inconstancy and changeability of the media landscape. The authors suppose that the typological specifics of dissertation works on journalism and mass communications could be seen as a factor of a general media theory construction.