Issue

Content:

• Modern Journalism: Subjects and Issues

  «Fact Checking and Information Verification in Russian Media: Survey Results»

  This article is based on the survey that includes responses from Russian journalists, editors, producers and other media staff participating in news gathering and consumption and having different professional experience. The sample contains diverse types of media (print, news agencies, television channels, radio stations and new media). The fact checking process is a daily practice. Information verification takes from several minutes to half an hour. Statistics, citations and posts on social networks are verified more often than other information categories. Journalists find incorrect information in other mass media, social networks and materials of PR-departments. In 85% of cases, it is negligent attitude to professional functions that leads to the publication of fake information. Drawing on the survey, one can highlight the factors interfering with the fact checking process. These are lack of time, lack of necessary information and laziness of those responsible for verifying information. As a rule, the most difficult cases of fact checking involve the intentional distortion of information or an unwillingness to provide it.
  Keywords: fact checking, information verification, fact, fake, news
  DOI: 10.30547/vestnik.journ.4.2018.325
  Daria V. Sokolova 3

• «New Historicism and Historical Representations in the Digital Environment»

  The article describes new representation forms of historical knowledge in modern digital media scene. The author introduces the concept of «history virtualization», which suggests supplying additional meanings to actual historical materials, and studies various virtualization scenarios such as an ironic reinterpretation of a historical event, its mythologization and symbolization, interactive and game representations of history and the loss of connection between a symbol and historical reality. The visual representation form, the addition of ironic meaning and the presence of many equivalent viewpoints in cyberspace result in such a phenomenon as an internet meme. A historical meme is a «laughter» response of the mass audience to public events, but it involves history simplification and stereotypification. The phenomenon of history mythologization is characterized by history interpretation and update from the ideological perspective. In this case, interpretation may replace reality. Breaking the connection between reality and representation is also typical of interactive forms of the presentation of historical material. In interactive games, the user can only make a virtual decision. A lot of opportunities for virtual interaction with historical, political or social materials replace the user‘s real participation in the ongoing social process.
  Keywords: new historicism, historical issues in the media, history in the digital environment, internet meme, history mythologization, Stephen Greenblatt
  DOI: 10.30547/vestnik.journ.4.2018.2654
  Diana Yu. Solovyova 26
• History of Journalism

  «Economic Aspects of the Development of the Izvestiya Publishing House in the 1920s»

  The article examines the economic and financial aspects of the operation of Izvestiya, one of the largest Soviet publishing houses in the 1920s. On the basis of new and previously introduced into scientific circulation archival documents, the author identifies the main stages of the development of the publishing house, describes its structural changes at that time and analyses the main elements of its economic activities. The author maintains that by the end of the 1920s, the publishing house proved to be one of the most successful media enterprises in the USSR.
  Keywords: publishing house, Izvestiya, the press, media economics, the USSR, NEP
  DOI: 10.30547/vestnik.journ.4.2018.5581
  Maksim I. Babyuk 55

• «The Discussion on Literary Criticism in the Oktyabr' Magazine (1960–1961)»

  The article examines a piece of magazine controversy of the early 1960s and the history of Soviet literary criticism of the “thaw” period, namely the metacritical discussion in the October magazine. The author analyses some articles on literary criticism published during the first year after the death of F. Panferov, the magazine’s chief editor until October 1960, and his replacement by Vs. Kochetov. These articles formed the discussion on metacriticism connected to the government’s cultural policy. The article deals with the concept of metacriticism, illustrates the influence of the government’s statements on Soviet metacriticism, identifies the main issues raised in the metacritical articles of the Oktyabr' magazine and shows different points of view on those issues. In the course of analyzing the articles, the author comes to the conclusion that there might have been a connection between the metacritical discussion in the magazine and the preparations for the publication of the Third Program of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union in the press.
  Keywords: history of literary criticism, Soviet literary criticism, metacriticism, magazine controversy, literary magazines, Oktyabr magazine
  DOI: 10.30547/vestnik.journ.4.2018.82105
  Elizaveta I. Dvortsova 82

• «Proletarians on the Pages of Pravda in 1918–1926 as an Element of Creating the Image Of Power»

  In this article, the author reviews the images of workers as depicted on the pages of the Pravda newspaper, the primary medium of RCP(b)/VKP(b), and proposes to see them as part of the propaganda campaign aimed at creating a positive image of the Soviet regime. Within the studied historical period, the country was ruled by party members with pre-revolutionary experience most of whom had not originated from the working class, which contradicted the announced concept of democracy. Hence the involvement of ordinary workers in governing the country and their admission to the ranks of the Communist Party were necessary to confirm that RCP(b) was indeed fulfilling the promises it had declared when coming to power. The image of the communist as a model citizen of the new world order was created with an emphasis on his diligence, readiness for self-sacrifice and fidelity to revolutionary ideals. The image of the worker, whose life had allegedly changed for the better, was presented in the press of 1918—1926 as proof of the fact that the power was faithful to its pre-1917 slogans and was indeed capable of providing the people with a life scenario that met their expectations and was in itself part of a broader concept of democratic government.
  Keywords: image, image of power, images of communist workers, propaganda, party press, Pravda
  DOI: 10.30547/vestnik.journ.4.2018.106123
  Anastasia M. Sarycheva 106
• Television and Radio

  «Screen-Based Game Communications as an Indicator of the Perception of Media Reality: the Social Status & Generation Aspect»

  The article outlines the main directions in the study of on-screen game communications as system-organizing elements of the media environment. The author declares the game/screen/communications/multimedia conjugacy and tests the hypothesis about the status-generation gap in the perception of the game phenomenon by students and university teachers. The latter pass on their own worldview priorities in the process of training specialists for the field of media communications: journalism, advertising, public relations, etc. The discovery of this gap makes it possible to understand and evaluate from the positions of the game paradigm the problems of screen media reality, which is formed individually (the projection “student”) and institutionally (the projection “teacher”). The game technology Boss Fight is regarded in the article as an indicator of potential conflicts in the training space as well as an actual method of their optimization. This technology was involved by the author in the training course Television Journalism (RUDN University, 2017/18 academic year).
  Keywords: game, on-screen communications, status, generation, manipulations
  DOI: 10.30547/vestnik.journ.4.2018.124138
  Irina I. Volkova 124
• Media Language

  «Some Problems and Tasks of Teaching Media Linguistics»

  Media linguistics is aimed at the establishment of a special functionality of language signs determined by modern media. Within the framework of media linguistics, there is mutual adaptation of the journalistic and linguistic apparatus. A special media language is a prerequisite for the formation of media linguistics. A rigid hierarchy of what is right and wrong, normative and non-normative is replaced by media communication, which is tolerant to deviations: an expanded view of the options suitable for different circumstances prevails. Dissatisfaction with the media language should be overcome not without the participation of linguists. The common good consists in maintaining a high cultural level in media communication, and it should limit the manifestation of the destructive element, even if for some specific purposes in a certain target audience this element may be relevant. The recognition of media linguistics as a special branch of linguistics makes many areas of interdisciplinary research of the media language currently important. The most promising ones are as follows: the correlation of verbal and audiovisual components of the media language; the correspondence of media texts to the ideas of ecological communication; the translation of ethical and speech norms through the media; the correlation of system and contextual norms in the media. The didactic (pedagogical) aspect is also extremely important.
  Keywords: media communication, media language, scientific overreach, normativity
  DOI: 10.30547/vestnik.journ.4.2018.139158
  Ludmila A. Brusenskaya, Ella G. Kulikova 139
• Discussion

  «Media Component of the Digital Economy»

  The article analyzes the interrelation of the digital economy and the media. The author considers the possibilities of digital technologies in the development of media systems, the influence of mass communication channels on shaping the atmosphere of public trust acting as a key factor in the country’s development. In solving these problems, retraining and raising the skills of journalists have a great role to play, which requires a change in the Russian model of education.
  Keywords: digital economy, information and communication media systems, public trust, model of education
  DOI: 10.30547/vestnik.journ.4.2018.159175
  Evgeny Ya. Dugin 159