Media Segments Research Articles

REFORMS IN THE NATIONAL SECURITY SECTOR: CHALLENGES AND PROSPECTS FOR UKRAINE IN THE TIME OF WAR

The article examines the problem of preserving the information sovereignty of the state as a necessary condition for ensuring its national security. The concept of the apparatus of the research area is considered, the scientific interpretation of the terms "information security", "information war", "destructive propaganda", "information struggle" and others is given. It is noted that the protection of the information field of the country from external harmful influence is a fundamental task of the state, which belongs to the sphere of its national interests. And reforms in the national security sector are vitally necessary in the conditions of war with the Russian Federation. They conducted a retrospective analysis of the use of various strategies for optimizing national security. It is noted that the protection of the country’s information field from external harmful influence is a fundamental task of the state, which belongs to the sphere of its national interests. In Ukraine, certain experience has been accumulated in ensuring information security, legislative, organizational and institutional foundations of this process have been created. However, the activities of authorized structures are more focused on the protection of information systems and networks of strategic importance, while the issue of countering Russia’s ideological expansion remains on the periphery of their attention. The country’s authorities do not always conduct comprehensive, coordinated work to combat fakes and destructive propaganda, which poses a real danger to national interests. The article analyzes specific cases of the promotion of Russian propaganda narratives in the Ukrainian media segment. The vulnerability of Ukraine’s information security system is reflected and practical recommendations for their elimination are provided, which include the creation of an early warning system of information attacks, cyber sabotage, manipulative actions from the outside with a built-in mechanism for prompt response and purchase of similar threats; improvement of the relevant legislative framework and adoption of a holistic concept of information security of Ukraine; strengthening the potential of domestic mass media to counteract destructive propaganda.

"OUR COMMUNITY": CONSUMPTION OF ENTERTAINING CONTENT IN SOCIAL MEDIA BY THE RUSSIAN YOUTH, 2022-2024 (BASED ON THE EMPIRICAL RESEARCH)

The article considers consumption of entertaining content in social nets by the Russian youth in the period of the global transformation (2022-2024) in the Russian segment of digital media. The goal of the research, based on the questionnaire of 300 students from two Nizhny Novgorod universities majoring in humanities and analysis of secondary sources, aims to figure out the youth's preferences of social media and projects as well as determine the most popular comedians who perform online in different genres. The young people have camp games expressed interest in standup format, travelogues, and shows with improvisation elements. Projects of Medium Quality Production company («Gromkii vopros», «Kontakty», «Neigry», «Table time», «Natal'naya karta», which concepts resemble games, played at school camps or kids' parties, have been estimated high by the respondents. Most of shows' participants, who have been noted as talented comic actors, have experience in playing KVN games or working on television. They are actively using obscene language, thus breaking the rules of public communication. The survey participants are familiar with content of many television channels: «ТNТ», «SТS», «Pyatnitza», «Yu» thanks to social media; they consume TV content via computer, tablet, or smartphone. The loss of interest to online interview has been detected. Limited access to foreign social networks have instigated active development of VKontakte and VK Video. Nevertheless, YouTube remains the most popular video hosting platform with the Russian youth who are not prepared to abandon it.

Disinformation against Crimean Tatars in Russian Social Media

This article examines the persistence of Tatarophobia against Crimean Tatars in the Russian segment of social media during the first year of the full-scale invasion (24 February 2022–24 February 2023). A total of 4,435 posts from various social media platforms, including Facebook, Odnoklassniki, Telegram, Twitter, and Vkontakte, were analysed. The discourse predominantly echoes Russia’s imperial and Soviet-era narratives, along with xenophobic and oppressive rhetoric exacerbated by the full-fledged invasion. The propaganda seeks to cultivate a negative perception of Crimean Tatars as an ethnic community, manipulating cultural and historical aspects related to them. Additionally, it endeavours to construct an adversarial image of relations between Ukraine and the Crimean Tatars, as well as of Ukraine’s current policies. Russian special services perceive the capacity of Crimean Tatars to self-organize, establish volunteer units, or organize blockades as a threat. The propaganda effort not only fosters harassment and hate speech but also encourages peninsula residents to view them as “unreliable elements” deserving of suppression.

Memes During the Times of War in the Publications of the Polish News Website: Functions and Narratives/Memy w czasie wojny w publikacjach polskich serwisów informacyjnych: funkcje i narracje

This paper presents findings from a study examining the role and functioning of crisis-time memes, particularly during the full-scale invasion of Ukraine, in Polish news websites Rzeczpospolita, Fakt, and WP Wiadomości. It also explores related primary narratives in the context of media tabloidization, and the influence of stylistics and practices from both citizen journalism and social networks. Linguistic, culturological, thematic, and content analyses indicate that strategies of meme usage are influenced by their socio-cultural nature as unique expressions of public opinion (Vox Populi), as well as by the editorial policy of the media and journalists’ intentions. Authors employ memes not only to illustrate themes but also as informational triggers and even sources. Some publications directly or indirectly raise the issue concerning the role of media in simplifying public perception of contemporary problems. In this context, memes can function both as a tool for tabloidization and as a means of formulating and researching complicated themes, such as resistance to propaganda and populism. Quantitative analysis data confirm that Rzeczpospolita media publishes the most memes about the war, despite positioning itself in the segment of qualitative mainstream media and not excessively using memes as illustrations. Conversely, Fakt and WP Wiadomości, which prefer themes of sports and politics, exploit this format intensely. Simultaneously, authors of Rzeczpospolita primarily use verbal descriptions of memes or employ them to achieve various artistic and expressive effects while preserving journalistic factual material and often avoiding information visualization.

Self-regulation in the media sector: legal aspects

The article is dedicated to exploring the legal aspects of self-regulation in the media sphere in Ukraine and its correlation with the legal aspects of regulation and co-regulation. The focus is on the role of self-regulation in ensuring the activities of media entities, illustrating the difference between self-regulation in the media sphere and self-regulation in journalism. The examines various aspects of self-regulation in the media sphere in Ukraine, including internal control mechanisms, the role of media entities, and interaction with government authorities. In particular, it investigates the impact of national legislation on the formation and development of self-regulation in the media sphere in Ukraine. Practical challenges and possible ways to improve self-regulation mechanisms in the media segment are highlighted.

Trends and Technologies for Russia’s Constructive Image in the Mass Media National Segments Over the Former Yugoslavia Area

The research examines the strategies and historical context of forming a constructive image of the Russian Federation in the national segments of the post-Yugoslav mass media — Serbia, Croatia and Montenegro. The work uses a neoinstitutional approach to analyze the institutional configurations of political actors in the former Yugoslavian countries. Appling the event analysis method, the author conducted a study on mass media publications about Russia, examining the reasons, goals, opportunities, and strategies. The paper presents data from the author’s automated content analysis of media materials from the countries of the former Yugoslavia from 2022 to the present.

Trends of Modern Media Industry: Mobile Applications as a New Format of Media

The study explores the specifics of the development of the media landscape in modern Russia. Attention is focused on the changes occurring in the information field, particularly on the issue of forming new channels of distribution and transforming the ways in which audiences consume journalistic products. The use of mobile applications is addressed, which complement and enhance the significance of online publications as part of the media segment. Key characteristics of mobile devices are emphasized. Functional aspects of content transmission and restrictions imposed on media content are highlighted. Stages of transforming media content for mobile applications are identified. The relevance of the research is justified by the expansion of media integration processes and information and communication technologies development, leading to modifications in mass media. A practical study of media platforms for cell phones at federal and regional levels is conducted. A comparative analysis of the mobile applications RBC Daily and LipetskMedia is carried out. It is proven that the difference in the presentation of images of reality through mobile applications and other content distribution channels depends solely on the editorial information and business policies in the realm of mobile devices. At this stage, the emergence of financially successful mass media where mobile applications serve as the sole content distribution channel is entirely possible.

Promoting the Patriotic Agenda on Social Media among Russian Students

The study aims to compare patriotic attitudes among the social group of student youth, as reflected in public opinion dynamics and social media information flows. The research methodology was based on cognitive and network approaches to examining social processes. The methods of open sociological and statistical data analysis, cognitive content mapping and automated social media analysis were used to determine the content and intensity of the impact of opposing patriotic and anti-patriotic information flows in the Russian segment of social media on the social values and attitudes of student youth. The results of the study revealed a high intensity of information pressure of anti-patriotic information flow in the digital communications environment on the audience of student youth. The sociological data indicates a strong prevalence of patriotic attitudes among the youth, however, analysis of information flows reveals the widespread presence of anti-patriotic narratives and discourses on social networks. The student communities of supporters of the patriotic idea differ from the opponents in that they are much more numerous, but much less active in producing and promoting semantic content in the social media space. The social media segment in Russia lacks a well-developed network infrastructure, including opinion leaders and effective platforms for broadcasting patriotic content. The empirical study of information flows has shown that universities are not on the list of platforms for promoting the patriotic agenda. Russian universities face a significant challenge in implementing patriotic education for the youth due to their technological and ideological detachment from students who are immersed in the digital communication environment. These circumstances reveal institutional issues with implementing the state policy of youth development in the face of existential challenges.

КОГНИТИВНЫЕ КАРТЫ ИНФОРМАЦИОННЫХ ПОТОКОВ КОНСОЛИДИРУЮЩЕЙ И ДЕКОНСОЛИДИРУЮЩЕЙ НАПРАВЛЕННОСТИ В РОССИЙСКИХ СОЦИАЛЬНЫХ МЕДИА (2023–2024 ГОДЫ)

The relevance of the stated topic is dictated by the increasing information and military confrontation between the Russian Federation and the West and the need in these conditions to monitor the level of social consolidation, which largely depends on the social and media support of the solidarity effect on Russian society. The purpose of the study is to identify the key characteristics of cognitive maps of information flows representing attitudes towards consolidation and deconsolidation of Russian society. The objectives of the analysis are to identify contexts, triggers, discourses, target audiences, actors, technologies for the formation of public attitudes, to determine the pool of actors and authors of consolidation and deconsolidation content of the Russian segment of social media. The characteristics of the consolidation flow include patterns of using collective security as a basis for solidarity, maintaining a value consensus, positive national-state identity, and maintaining sovereignty as a basic value. Signs of deconsolidation flows are the exploitation of social deprivation to undermine public trust in the authorities, devaluation of the importance of independence and state sovereignty, instructional, irrational, and manipulative influence on public opinion. In conclusion, as one of the results of the study, measures for information support of consolidation work in social media are presented.

Semiotic Organization of Russian Environmental Internet Memes

In this article, the authors examine Russian environmental internet memes, presented on social networks such as VKontakte, Odnoklassniki, and on websites like Memepedia, Pikabu, and A. Chistopashin’s site. They have developed a set of criteria relevant for the analysis of environmental internet memes as complex linguistic and semiotic formations. The aim of the study was to identify the specific features of the semiotic organization of environmental internet memes and establish the dominant semiotic code that determines the conceptual content of the meme. It is shown that the Russian-speaking segment of environmental communication through memes has its own thematic and genre specificity. Environmental internet memes usually rely on the use of media semiotic codes, where the meme includes both text and illustration. Less frequently, memes are created based on narrative semiotic codes, where the visual component illustrates the beginning, climax, or end of a story. The verbal component is dominant when borrowing viral visual templates. The main stylistic device in environmental internet memes, alongside irony and the effect of false expectation, is linguistic play. Semiotic analysis of internet memes has shown that the combination of verbal and visual signs is typical for the media segment of environmental internet communication.

Mobilization Of Political Protest In The Russian Segment Of Social Media (2021): Triggers, Audience, Communication Channels

The article presents the results of applied political research, the purpose of which is to determine the scale, mobilization potential, social base, and digital communication technologies of protest-oriented information flow in the Russian segment of social media on the eve of the Single Voting Day of 2021. The cognitive mapping implemented in the study made it possible to identify the meaningful characteristics of the information flow. The social media analysis made it possible to determine the dynamic and structural characteristics of the information flow, the gender and age specifics of the users involved in it, as well as quantitative characteristics of the activity of key communities forming protest information flows. The method of social graphs revealed the structure of interaction between the opposition and protest communities of Telegram in 2021. The event analysis carried out during the study made it possible to fix the key peaks of growth in the dynamics of user activity around protest events and discourses. On this basis, it was possible to identify the triggers used to involve users in protest information flows (elections, law enforcement agencies, vaccination, socio-economic problems), typologize the communities forming the protest information flow (protest aggregator communities, news aggregator communities, local analytics communities), and model of mass protest mobilization (primary trigger — secondary trigger — offline protest).

Linguocultural Specifics of Artificial Intelligence Representation in the English Language Media Discourse: Corpus-Based Approach

The article deals with the discursive construction of artificial intelligence (AI) in the English-language media discourse. Corpus methods establish semantic, figurative-perceptual and axiological specificity in the media representation of AI in various media segments, such as tabloids and broadsheet papers. Corpus-assisted discourse analysis includes: 1) identification of unique semantic domains that determine discourse interpretations of this socially significant phenomenon, followed by an analysis of their dispersion in narratives about AI; 2) analysis of the figurative-evaluative and value content of its media representation; 3) investigation of the specifics of broadsheet media and tabloid media representations of the AI concept. It was found that AI receives multiple media representations, in which its conceptual features represented by the lexical items of the semantic fields "Knowledge", "Ability", "Information and Computer Technologies" are supplemented and enriched by the lexical units of the semantic fields "Safety/Danger", "Transformation", "Ethics". In media narratives about AI, the concept of "imitation of human abilities" is often associated with fake news, plagiarism, warfare, crime, climate change, and unemployment. Corpus data revealed that in the narratives about AI in broadsheet media, the lexical items of the semantic field "Robots" emphasize the similarity of AI with anthropomorphic entities; the semantic field "Competition" represents the idea of a rivalry between a human and a machine, as well as between countries, governments and companies; the semantic field "Warfare" actualizes the pragmatics of warning related to collective security and expressing public concern about the possible negative consequences of the development of AI. Popular media emphasize the androgenic nature of AI, its entertainment potential ("Games"), practical values related to health care ("Medicines and Treatment"); and the pragmatics of warning related to individual safety ("Crime"). The evaluative media representation of AI is formed mainly by ethical and practical, often negative, evaluative features transmitted through metaphoric images, intertextual references, and cultural models that determine the behavioural patterns of the discursive community members.

Development of decision-making technique based on sentiment analysis of crowdsourcing data in medical social media resources

The object of the study is the decision-making modeling in the context of medical social media to increase the clinics’ effectiveness. The problem is to classify the patient reviews collected in the patient-clinic segment of the medical social media and to identify the situation related to the clinics’ activity by revealing the criteria characterizing the clinics’ activity out of the opinions. The proposed technique refers to lexicon-based sentiment analysis of opinions, the classification based on Valence Aware Dictionary and Sentiment Reasoner (VADER), the verification of the results accuracy with Multinomial Naive Bayes and Support Vector Machine, the manual sentiment analysis of opinions to detect criteria and the classification of opinions according to each criterion. Using this technique, out of 442587 patient reviews obtained from database cms_hospital_satisfaction_2020 of the Kaggle company generated on the basis of crowdsourcing of patient reviews on medical social media, 218914 patient reviews are classified as positive, 190360 – as neutral, and 33313 – as negative. The results accuracy is verified, and the clinics are rated by the «positive» opinions. 6 new criteria characterizing the clinics’ activity are discovered, and the identification of the situation related to the clinics’ activity based on the comparison of «positive» and «negative» opinions according to each criterion is presented. The possibility of using the results obtained from the identification to increase the clinics’ efficiency in making decisions is shown. The results obtained in this study can be used to improve the clinics’ performance according to public opinion. This opportunity involves the crowdsourcing of opinions about the clinic in the medical social media environment and the collection of opinions in a structured way.

Mechanisms of Generating Emotions in Audio-Based Media

Audio-based content is considered to be extremely intimate and easily evoking emotions in listeners. The aim of this article is to determine the affective mechanisms used in audio productions during the COVID-19 pandemic.
 The analysis focuses on radio programmes of public and commercial radio stations and the broadly defined audio media segment: podcasts and streaming services from Europe, the USA, and Australia. The content created during the so-called first wave of the pandemic (March–June 2020) was considered. Sound recordings are analysed in terms of four aspects related to the structure of audio content: words, music, acoustic effects, and silence. This study aims to present the perspective of a broadcaster who designs the audience’s affective reactions and the unique nature of radio journalists’ work during the pandemic.
 The study confirmed the use of mechanisms intended to intensify and regulate emotions in audio productions in all of the analysed areas. This is especially true for emotionally-charged lexis, voice expressions, selection of musical repertoire and solutions applied in sound editing. The importance of silence as an acoustic equivalent of distance, void and isolation is emphasised. We put forward a list of mechanisms behind generating and modulating emotions in audio-based media. The study shows how sound, as diverse as it is, conveys emotions in the media.

INVARIANT LINGUOSTYLISTICS OF THE MEDIA REVIEW GENRE

The article touches upon the problem of stylistic status of the review. Its invariant in the media in modern forms optimizes the effective model of analytics in public communication. The author’s thesis is based on the argumentation of the contrasting nature of the modern media review (as an object of analysis) in relation to its traditional varieties – scientific and literary-critical. It is explained by the dynamic functional resource of new media represented in the Internet, social networks, etc. The openness of their communicative boundaries expands the category of authorship, when a potential reviewer is not necessarily a specialist (which is typical for scientific review), but a real recipient of information. Such extralinguistic dominants of the media review are qualified as one of the genre-creating factors resulting in the systematic selection of relevant constructions. In accordance with the research tasks, a thesis is formulated regarding the change of the professional context of the review in the media, which is supplemented by the means of individual emotional and expressive evaluation, verbalized by units of different language levels. It is determined that the genre nature of the media review relies on the analytical resource of verbalizing the author’s – not professional – opinion regarding the object of review. Appropriate reflection, taking into account the mass media context of its functioning and the extralinguistic factor of the audience, involves the use of commonly used vocabulary, phraseology, paraphrases, epithets, optimal, special syntactic models, etc. – as communicative markers of assessment. The investigation of linguostylistics of the media review results in its identification as a meta-genre, which, assuming the analytical principle of informing, is based on a certain recommended evaluation of a message, book, film, concert, event, etc., and can be designed in accordance with the communicative dominant of genres, actual for different media segments –review, post in social networks, extended comment, rticle, etc. The formulated and commented ambiguity and debatability of the genre-stylistic status of the media review determines the actual and perspective problems of further professional studies in the field of media genreology.

Information Wars and Mythology of Social: Ideological, Mental and Media aspects

In the modern epoch, there is a transformation of social space, forms of interaction between people. “Thinking models”, the so-called mental attitudes, are changing, that stipulates research of the processes of transformation of the mental aspects in a modern culture. The ideological and mental aspects are the dimensions where these modifications are reflected. One can measure social and cultural transformations, existing problems and development in the future through the mental aspect in retrospect and at the present time. A person becomes a “political being”, functioning as a subject of public life. One of the features of “post-modernization” of mass culture noted today is a some special network of the global information space with its own laws, which draws attention to the most acute or minor problems. In political science, a network approach to public administration is increasingly observed. Today, big data plays an important role in public administration. They are used to improve the policy in the field of interethnic relations, develop a strategy for the state's foreign information policy. Big data is used in the process of forming a particular policy. In the context of the use of big data, one can note the analysis of “digital citizenship” culture of network users, actors, formation technologies, socio-political effects. Determining the direction of information flows in a particular segment of social media, risks and technologies to overcome negative effects in the online environment is becoming increasingly important and relevant. In particular, this applies to information flows representing the problems of relations in international conflicts. In this context, concepts such as consciousness, including political consciousness, political culture, mentality and ideology are becoming increasingly important and relevant. The mental transformations observed today must also be taken into account in defining modern methods of teaching and education.

Modern Russian Youth’s Attitudes toward the Civil and Political Online Activity

The problem of the research lies in the contradiction between the importance of forming constructive strategies of civic and political activity of Russian youth in the digital space and the increasing risks of destructive and unconventional strategies of online activity of young Russians. The intensification of external information pressure on the Russian national segment of social media with the high involvement of Russian youth in Internet communication and the audience of unconventional digital resources is highlighted among the factors that actualize the research problem under study. In order to identify the degree of readiness of young Russians to constructive civic and political activity online, a nationwide survey of the younger generation was conducted by questionnaire. The main results of the study are the following statements and conclusions: the attitude to the development of online resources of political communication in general is quite skeptical, and depends on the social status of the surveyed youth and the value profe of its representatives; the most positive attitude and willingness to participate young people demonstrate regarding the development of online forms of volunteer/volunteer organizations; a noticeable percentage of young users of Internet in Russian Federation have a positive attitude toward the development of online forms of protest movements, but these attitudes do not have the potential to convert to the offline.

Television Broadcasting and Information Security: Analyzing Current Challenges and Future Prospects

Television is gradually losing its position, but all predictions about its elimination from the media market in the short term do not come true. This necessitates a new understanding of the contemporary television space in its conceptual and functional dimensions. The purpose of the article is to analyse the information and security challenges in the paradigm of modern television broadcasting. The tasks of the scientific research are focused on the problem of modern positioning of the information culture of television broadcasting: on the one hand, it is a traditional media format that is already clearly established in terms of information security; on the other hand, television is being updated with new formats, which requires appropriate up-to-date mechanisms for responding to new potential threats without a peak cluster. The research methodology is focused on general scientific methods: analysis, modelling, forecasting. The analytical methodological segment provides traditional systemic and comparative characteristics of information security of television broadcasting; innovative methods, such as content analysis and online monitoring, are designed to determine the specifics of television content in the paradigm of modern media culture. The results of the study show that the interpretation of information security in the television segment is ambiguous. It is necessary to formulate a set of guidelines of a practical, applied and theoretical, and mental nature that will regulate information content and prevent threats from television broadcasting. The author proposes the principles of information and communication control that will form a control system in the television cluster but will not turn into censorship: improvement of the fundamental triad of information security (confidentiality, integrity, and availability) and the addition of additional elements - authenticity, reliability, relevance. Prospects for information security research in the television segment are the synergy of human and technological efforts to prevent illegal and harmful activity in the broadcasting process: preventing unauthorised actions, avoiding threatening interpretations, and denying inhumane manifestations. Consequently, television remains an active player in the modern paradigm of the information society, maintaining its status as a relevant broadcaster of content of various kinds. Information security is a set of measures that provide for control over all information and communication media segments, which forms both universal and specific principles of information influence directly on the television format.

From Media Systems to Digital Journalisms: An Introduction to the Special Issue

Nearly half a century since the first calls for comparisons of national-level media-political relations, comparative studies of media systems – and even more so of digital journalism – are still an emergent research field. In this introduction to the special issue ‘Comparing Digital Journalisms across Nations and Cultures’, we draw links between media systems and digital journalism(s) in comparative studies. First, we suggest a ‘systemic turn’ in media systems studies, with various branches of systems theory applied to media studies in a sound way; directing comparative studies to seeking systemic stability of journalism along with assessing its democratic performance; dealing more with contexts; and finding new criteria for cross-country comparisons. Second, we argue that, for digital journalisms as multi-level research objects, the systemic perspective intertwines with the epistemic one of truth-seeking and cultures of media professionalism. Third, we show how this logic is supported by the articles in the special issue which assess the impact of de-industrialization upon media performance and compare journalistic roles across nations and media segments. They also draw attention to audience as a major new comparative criterion, rethink nation-state as the level of analysis, and highlight risk as a new dimension of comparing digital journalism(s).

Media relations strategy of the public relations of the University of August 17, 1945 Surabaya in the maintenance of the image of the institution

This study aims to analyze the public relations media strategy in maintaining the image of the University of 17 August 1945 Surabaya. This type of research is descriptive qualitative research. The research subjects were Untag Surabaya public relations and mass media journalists. Data were collected using interview, observation and documentation methods. The collected data were then analyzed through data reduction, data presentation, and drawing conclusions. To ensure the validity of the data, this research used triangulation technique. The results of this study indicate that the media relations strategy of Untag Surabaya Public Relations in maintaining the image of Universitas 17 August 1945 Surabaya is carried out in accordance with established procedures. This can be seen from the role of Untag Surabaya Public Relations in the form of publishing press releases, holding press conferences, placing advertorial advertisements to the appropriate segment of mass media through the media list. Public Relations of Untag Surabaya establishes a close relationship with mass media colleagues through media gathering events, provides media center facilities to work, gather information, establish two-way communication with journalists regarding the activities to be carried out.