Issue

Content:

• New Media

  «Demand for Journalistic Text Genres Among the Online Media Audience»

  This paper is devoted to the correlation between the popularity of journalistic texts and their genres. The study of 10 Russian media websites (rbc.ru, lenta.ru, ria. ru, kommersant.ru, aif.ru, rg.ru, vedomosti.ru, novayagazeta.ru, ura.ru, znak.com) showed that the most read are news items and, secondarily, analytical articles and columns. Texts in other genres are read much less. This is equally true of the genres traditional for the print press such as reportage, interview and feature story and the genres developed on the Internet such as online translation, cards, list. The multimedia longread format is also unpopular. The general impression is that the accumulative effect of non-news publications is very weak.
  Keywords: genres, online media, news items, multimedia longread
  DOI: 10.30547/vestnik.journ.3.2019.322
  Alexander V. Kolesnichenko 3

• «To Entertain and Dominate: Images of Russian Power and Opposition in Internet Memes»

  The political Internet meme is one of the little-studied phenomena of modern digital culture. Understood as a unit of transmission of cultural information in the network, such a meme can be viewed, on the one hand, as a spontaneous product of the creative work of many people, a mechanism of political participation and, on the other, as a tool of political PR technologies, a way to “overstate ” or “understate ” the image of a political leader. The novelty of the proposed article, which is devoted to the results of the study of the memes posted on Russian social media in 2017—2019, is in the fact that it describes the first attempt to trace the formation of the images of Russian power and opposition embodied in memetic constructions. Using the methods of communication research (primarily those of semantic, semiotic and comparative analysis), as well as relying on expert interview data, the author of the article solves the main task of identifying the leading varieties of Runet’s political memes as well as the semantic characteristics of the memes that form the image of Russian politicians. One of the most important conclusions could be the observation that from the point of view of the potential of their viral spread and the possibility of being noticed by the Runet audience the most effective Internet memes are “negative”, aggressive political ones (the memes that work to “understate” the image of a political persona /or idea /or event).
  Keywords: new media, Internet meme, political communication, power, opposition, political image
  DOI: 10.30547/vestnik.journ.3.2019.2343
  Svetlana A. Shomova 23
• Television and Radio

  «The Night Air of Moscow All-News Radio Stations Business FM, Vesti FM and Kommersant FM: Programming Characteristics»

  The authors of the paper address the topic of news broadcasting, which has always been central to Russian radio. As contemporary scholarly science has focuses relatively little on the night segment of radio stations in general and all-news stations in particular, the first stage of a complex study “Transformation of content strategies of modern radio broadcasting and television in the digital environment” involves scientific analysis of the content of the period from 00 to 06 a.m. The tasks of the study include: identifying the content strategies of Moscow’s all-news FM radio stations (Business FM, Vesti FM and Kommersant FM); understanding their editorial policies; isolating similarities and differences in program scheduling. The study confirmed that in night broadcasting the radio stations tend to employ the daytime and evening content of the previous day. Notably, Business FM and Kommersant FM use tape delay, unlike the Vesti FM radio station, where a round-the-clock news service operates. Linear programming on Business FM and Kommersant FM erases the boundary between the news bulletin and the subsequent piece of news as an extension but attracts the audience. On the selected radio stations, the most common genres of night broadcasting are news and, more rarely, analytical genres. The genre of reporting, as understood classically, has been replaced by the so-called “news package”. Elements of artistic broadcasting are present only partially in promos, which are found, together with mini formats and features, in sufficiently large numbers in the interprogram space.
  Keywords: radio broadcasting, news radio broadcasting, content strategies, genres, formats, content features
  DOI: 10.30547/vestnik.journ.3.2019.4461
  Ludmila A. Kruglova , Olga V. Tikhonova, Ekaterina A. Bolotova, Julia A. Duntze, Gennady V. Syrkov 44

• «The Narrative of the Skripals Case in the "Vesti Nedeli" Television Program: an Analysis of the Story Plot »

  This paper presents the results of a quantitative and qualitative analysis of data that contended in the scripts of twenty-seven episodes of the informational TV show “Vesti Nedeli” (Russia 1, 2018) The attribution is based on C. Booker's universal plots, thanks to which it was possible to reveal the narrative peculiarities of Skripal Case represented by D. Kiselev and the correspondents of his show. The reasearch made it possible to identify that a basic plot that was represented in the news narrative of Skripal Case is a tragedy with the prescribed set of the characters and the consistent unravelling of the story in actes. It has been found that at the centre of journalists' narration is no Skripals, but the United Kingdom (subject) in the context of its relationship to Russia (object). The authors allocated subject-object roles the story characters, while Teresa May marked as the tragedy's lead character.
  Keywords: news story, universal plot, narrative, semantic roles, the Skripals’ poisoning
  DOI: 10.30547/vestnik.journ.3.2019.6283
  Leila O. Algavi, Irina I. Volkova, Shuanat N. Kadyrova, Natalya E. Rastorgueva 62
• Sociology of Journalism

  «Professional Culture of a Journalist: the Search for Common Approaches in Western and Russian Studies»

  The article is a review of contemporary studies of the professional culture of a journalist in Russia and of journalistic cultures in foreign works with the aim of finding the general theoretical and methodological background of the unification of approaches. The journalistic culture in Russia has been a relatively new object of consideration in global comparative studies but their results are not conceived in Russian-language literature conceptually. The author consistently examines the approaches, methods and their limitations for the period 2007— 2018 and suggests common problems and general categories for further research. The article describes a confrontation of the normative approach characteristic of Russian studies expressed in the investigation of psychological and sociological aspects of journalistic activity and the institutional approach of foreign studies, which focuses on the examination of professional roles in their perception and implementation in practice. The totality of professional values, standards and, ultimately, professionalism in journalism are seen by the author as a unifying category.
  Keywords: professional culture of a journalist, journalistic cultures, professional values, professionalism
  DOI: 10.30547/vestnik.journ.3.2019.84104
  Kamilla R. Nigmatullina 84

• «Non-Editorial Work in a Daily Newspaper and News Agency»

  This paper analyzes the non-editorial work of journalists in case studies of the Izvestia newspaper and RNS news agency. The research is based on studying one aspect of journalistic activities, non-editorial work, as well as on evaluating its effectiveness. The main research method was a survey. Using the collected questionnaires, the author examined the role non-editorial work plays in the structure of journalistic activities. The differences of non-editorial work between the two media outlets were highlighted. Thus, it was found that newspaper’s journalists are inclined to provide narrower coverage of events and attend to a particular speaker while the news agency’s journalists tend to cover events comprehensively. The author of the paper concludes that the non-editorial work of the newspaper’s journalists and the agency’s journalists significantly differ, which is accounted for by the fundamentally different missions of these kinds of media.
  Keywords: non-Editorial work, editorial work, newsroom, newspaper, agency
  DOI: 10.30547/vestnik.journ.3.2019.105119
  Anna D. Podlinova 105
• Modern Journalism: Subjects and Issues

  «Mediatization of Environmental Policy and Information Competition: the Russian and US Media Strategy for Substantiating the International Commitments to the Protection of the Atmosphere and Climate»

  For the analysis of the discourse of environmental policy in Russian and US media, this study refers to the Rogers and Dearing competing agendas model and to the understanding of propaganda according to Ellul. Based on the idea of media discourse as dependent on the political one, the study examines the propaganda models of Russian and American media, opponents in the information competition. The purpose of the article is to characterize the tools for political agenda-setting (global ecology problems) in the media field, identifying which media use effective propaganda tools. The study uses the quantitative intent analysis method. The empirical materials include texts of Russian and US national-level media from 01/01/2012 to 01/01/2017 (104 articles). It is concluded that the media in the United States highlight the commitments to the protection of the atmosphere and climate more often than those in Russia, and they significantly more often write about the United States and use the ‘analysis’ intention. The Russian media publish significantly more works about their opponents and more often use the ‘information’ intention. The authors of the study consider the Russian media propaganda model in the sphere of global ecological politics to be oppositional and less effective.
  Keywords: mediatization of environmental policy, propaganda model, intent analysis
  DOI: 10.30547/vestnik.journ.3.2019.120140
  Nadezhda K. Radina, Sophia D. Bobkova 120
• Foreign Journalism

  «Coverage of the 2003 War in Iraq in The New York Times»

  This paper analyzes the articles in The New York Times newspaper dealing with the 2003 war in Iraq, more specifically, with the first month of the operation Iraqi Freedom. The author used the classical variety of general content analysis. In order to build the set of tools, the author defined some categories for conducting content analysis of the empirical materials from The New York Times quality newspaper covering the 2003 war in Iraq: thematic scope of the materials, their tone, genres, key figures, contributors, geography and the like. The object of the study is the articles published in The New York Times during one month from the start of the operation Iraqi Freedom (March 20 — April 20, 2003). The selected time period corresponds to the greatest flow of articles on the US war against Iraq, which make it possible to trace the specific features of covering foreign policy conflicts. From March 20 to April 20, 2003, 2484 articles on Iraq were published on the website ProQuest Historical Newspapers: The New York Times with Index. Out of these the author analyzed 594 ones. Most of the materials are anti-war, they contain information easily understood by a wide audience. About one third of the materials are accompanied by photographs, maps and diagrams. The key figures are Iraqi President, US President, famous politicians as well as Private Jessica Lynch and the story of her rescue.
  Keywords: Iraq, operation Iraqi Freedom, The New York Times, the Middle East, weapons of mass destruction
  DOI: 10.30547/vestnik.journ.3.2019.141162
  Arina I. Novgorodova 141
• History of Journalism

  «Some Characteristics of Coverage of the Russo-Turkish War of 1877-78 in the British Press»

  The Russo-Turkish War of 1877—78 was the first campaign officially covered by members of the foreign press. The Russian command developed the conditions for admission realizing that the publication of correspondents’ articles could have a positive impact on the image of the Russian Empire. Finding out whether such experience was necessary and effective, the author of the article used a quantitative method to study the materials of five metropolitan and regional newspapers of Great Britain (The Times, The Daily News, The Standard, The Scotsman and The Manchester Guardian). The study revealed some features of the campaign coverage: for example, the most common genre was news, which was particularly relevant on the days of crossing the Danube and taking Pleven; journalists wrote reports from Romanian and Bulgarian fortresses situated along the river, refraining from doing analytics. Each newspaper had its own style of coverage of events with regard to Russia, which was connected with both the newspaper’s policy and the personal views of the correspondent. The information obtained allows to expand knowledge of the Russo-Turkish campaign.
  Keywords: the Russo-Turkish War of 1877— 78, the British press, The Times, The Daily News, The Standard, The Scotsman, The Manchester Guardian
  DOI: 10.30547/vestnik.journ.3.2019.163180
  Angelina V. Manakhova 163
• Criticism and Bibliography

  «A Practice-Oriented Approach to Teaching»

  Book Review: Pankeev I. A. (2019) Legal Regulation of Mass Media. Moscow: Aspekt Press Publ. 376 p.
  Keywords: education, practice-oriented approach
  DOI: 10.30547/vestnik.journ.3.2019.181183
  Anna M. Bychkova 181