Sociality of Journalism and Mass Media:Methodological Approaches

The concept of sociality in respect to journalism and mass media has not been studied in detail. Meanwhile, it is a significant and detached characteristic which deserves targeted studying. In social science, sociality is determined as interaction between people based on shared values. The author correlates this definition with academic views on the social function of journalism, as well as tries to find the balance between IT factors and social factors in the current period of evolution of journalism. Special attention is given to the integrative role of journalism in everyday life. In the context of of sociality, journalism and mass media are considered societal phenomena, taking into account all clarifications of typological features of certain mass media and other communication channels. The article provides a review of research papers on the topic, including national and foreign publications. The aim is to study the content and determine trends in the development of sociality of journalism and mass media. The key methodology applied by the author is a combination of institutional and socio-cultural approaches to studying socialtity. The first one emphasizes orderliness of social relationships, whereas the second focuses on particular attributes of people’s community that make up the content of social life. The socio-cultural view on sociality helps to identify peculiarities of journalism culture in a country, namely, in Russia, where it derives from the social diversity and multi-cultural environment. The research enables the author to make certain inferences regarding the growing influence of journalism and mass media on the way social interaction is organized.