Media and media communication — space of sociological knowledge

For citation: Kolomiets V. Media and media communication — space of sociological knowledge // Mediascope. 2023. 1. Available at: http://www.mediascope.ru/2800

© Victor P. Kolomiets

Doctor of Sociology, Professor, Head of the Chair of Sociology of Mass Communications, Faculty of Journalism, Lomonosov Moscow State University (Moscow, Russia), vikkolomiets@yandex.ru

Abstract

The problematic situation from which the author proceeds is that at present, under the influence of digital transformation in the Russian research space, there is a gradual transition from the sociology of mass media/mass communication to the sociology of media. This transition generates a research problem: the description of the research space of the application of sociological knowledge to the digital media environment, which is designated as media sociology. The author tries to answer two questions. First. Due to the fact that the media is "dissolving" into the social fabric of modern society and people's daily lives, is media sociology possible as a relatively independent direction of sociological knowledge, as it was with the sociology of mass media/mass communication? Second. What is the subject space of media sociology? When answering the first question, the author analyzes the difficulties faced by researchers in structuring the subject space of media sociology and comes to the conclusion that it is possible to overcome them. In answering the second question, the author, relying on the conceptual scheme of sociological imagination proposed by C. Mills reveals the content of media sociology as a special view and representation of the "crossroads" of media and society. In general, the author comes to the conclusion about the possibility and necessity of the existence of media sociology as a relatively independent direction of sociological knowledge, describes the conceptual and practical issues of modern communication practices that should and can be solved within the framework of sociological methodology and procedure.

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