Essence and prospects of media criticism research in contemporary Russia

R.P. Bakanov

Kazan Federal University, Kazan, 420008 Russia

E-mail: rbakanov@yandex.ru

Received March 21, 2017

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Abstract

The paper presents an overview of the studies on the state of media criticism. At present, this field of activity is mainly reflected in newspapers and magazines and online publications that contain media assessments (usually television). The authors of such texts are mainly critics, professionals who have many years of experience in journalism, art criticism, and other types of criticism (for example, theatrical, film criticism). In modern newspapers and magazines, this direction has gradually been reduced to weekly specialized author's headings in federal publications. They are small texts of a survey nature and reflect an exclusively subjective and, therefore, controversial point of view.

Media criticism has been gaining popularity on the Internet in the form of thematic forums, blogs, groups, and messages on personal pages in social networks. Here the speeches of professional critics coexist with the texts of so-called amateur critics – those who, for the first time, decided to publicly express their attitude to a particular program, the conduct of a guest or guest in the studio, the quality of a certain article, etc. The number of messages from them increases every day. It is difficult to say whether people who are the object of their attention or professional journalistic community listen to them.

The author of this paper has identified two approaches of Russian researchers to the study of this relatively new branch in Russian journalism. Firstly, media criticism has been considered in terms of how much it contributes to raising the level of media education of the audience. Secondly, its creative implementation and potential have been analyzed. In addition, the trends of further study of media criticism have been outlined. In this regard, it has been suggested that the available scientific data will be supplemented and that scientists will pay more attention of to this field. Moreover, the deductive approach to research organization, which has become traditional for the Kazan school of journalism, has been emphasized.

Keywords: TV criticism, media criticism, television critic, mass media, television program, ethics, interpretation, Kazan school of journalism

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For citation: Bakanov R.P. Essence and prospects of media criticism research in contemporary Russia. Uchenye Zapiski Kazanskogo Universiteta. Seriya Gumanitarnye Nauki, 2017, vol. 159, no. 3, pp. 589–603. (In Russian)


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