Young people's attitudes towards films about the Great Patriotic War: viewing expectations and genre preferences

Abstract

The article presents the results of two author's researches of young people's attitude towards films about the Great Patriotic War: "History in cinema: the problems of remediation" (10 focus groups) and "The Memory of the War in the Soviet and Post-Soviet Cinematography: the Young Audience View" (questionnaire survey, n = 2003).The authors identified the main narratives of interest to young audiences. It was noted that the films popular among young people are multi-genre works which combine historical accuracy and autobiographical, melodramatic and action-film elements.The viewing motivation associated with watching films about the Great Patriotic War, analyzed in terms of the theory of usage and satisfaction, is a complex system of expectations. The authors distinguish 6 groups of normative expectations: identity and integration; establishment of pleasant environment and recognition; tension and sensation seeking; authenticity and cognitive satisfaction; escapism and imagination; surprise and spectacularity.Historical war films fulfil social functions (meeting young people's expectations of integration, establishing a pleasant environment and credibility), while being an entertaining media product appropriate to the youth mediahabitus (meeting expectations of spectacle, suspense and escapism). The authors state that historical films devoted to the events of the Great Patriotic War manage to successfully maintain a balance between format (proximity in terms of style and language to the youth audience) and content (ideological, patriotic message).