Elaboration of Media Theories in Russian Academic Journals in the 2010s: Results of the First Stage of rhe Research
Download paperPhD in Philology, Associate Professor at the Chair of Media Theory and Economics, Faculty of Journalism, Lomonosov Moscow State University, Moscow, Russia
e-mail: makeenko.mikhail@smi.msu.ruSection: Theory of Journalism and Media
The article contains the results of a meta-study that was aimed at revealing current trends in the examination, conceptualization and elaboration of media theories in Russia. During the first stage of the study, more than 300 research articles published in 2012—2016 in five Russian academic journals were analyzed with a detailed consideration of the structure of the articles, keywords and literature and the use of particular authors and theories in the theoretical background. The data analysis reveals several trends in scientific discourse. The research tradition is still underdeveloped. The number of articles that follow the general rules for organizing a scientific text is minimal, and less than a quarter of all articles in the sample are based on original empirical or theoretical results. The objects of the study in the articles are centered around journalism, while many fields of media and communication research remain untouched. The theoretical background, as seen from the lists of books, authors and theories mentioned by researchers, is dominated by the philological and normative approaches. Most of the theoretical concepts are taken from Russian works or from a short list of Russian translations of foreign monographs, with many theories left unexplored and unused, which results in limited integration of Russian research discourse into the international context of media studies.
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