Paradigmatic Approach To Media Studies: the Experience of Foreign Researchers

Section: Theory of Journalism and Media

The media are a complex phenomenon, which is determined politically, socially, economically, and anthropologically by external factors. The article confirms the validity of the paradigmatic approach to media studies — the approach according to which the object / subject is studied from the standpoint of a system of views dominant in the existing conditions by scholars representing a certain scientific school. The three most widespread paradigms in foreign studies are as follows: empirical functionalism, political economy and the anthropological paradigm. The author believes that the paradigmatic approach is a methodologically correct tool contributing to a systematic consideration of media research. At the same time, the paradigmatic approach does not contradict the polyparadigmality of media research, which is especially evident in the centrist views of scientists equally recognizing the social, economic and cultural aspects of the media. Empirical functionalism is the most widespread and “normative ” paradigm, which media researchers borrowed from sociology. Each hypothesis is proved by empirical research, while theories and concepts are formulated proceeding from considerations of universal prosperity, maintaining social balance, pluralism of opinions as well as cultural and political diversity. The most famous theoretical postulates concerning the media, ranging from freedom of speech to social mission, are a product of empirical functionalism. The political economy of the media is a pragmatic paradigm: it considers the nature and functioning of the media in their true colours exploring the interests of media owners, their relationships with elites and the market aspect of the media. In comparison with the bright ideals of empirical functionalism, the political economy of the media is blamed for its “non-normativity”, for researchers’ closer attention to the realities of the media market than to societal demands. The anthropological paradigm does not study the media audience as a mass — the object of sociological interest or as consumers — the object of advertising measurements carried out for better sales. For anthropologists, the media audience consists of individuals interpreting media messages according to individual selective and perceptual processes. Media content is a set of semantic and value categories forming users’ everyday practices. Contemporary Russian media studies are distinguished by terminological and theoretical-conceptual confusion as well as by an aspiration to break free from the legacy of Soviet theorizing under Marxism-Leninism and formulate currently important national identity in the context of foreign academic media discourse. The paradigmatic approach to media studies partly blurs the boundaries between the “Russian” and “Foreign” scientific schools as it opens up broader perspectives of conceptual consideration.

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