Interaction of processes of the news agenda setting in the russian regional media system (as exemplified by the republic of tatarstan)

Abstract

Scientific understanding of the issue of agenda setting with the help of mass mediaallows identifying and developing certain ideas about the mechanisms of media influence onthe mass consciousness by designing different agendas and revealing some problem areas oftheir semantic content.Based on the fact that an agenda influences the authorities' formation processthrough the media practices and operation of mass media is defined as a method of forming asocial majority opinion, the process of creating an agenda on different levels of TV channelswas analyzed using a content analysis from the point of impact of a federal agenda on aregional one. The special features of this process include: traditional form of mediapresentation - a television interview - is an important agenda setting mechanism; it performsthe functions of content adaptation for the audience, accumulation of the major thematicdirections of an agenda, ranking, formatting, and management of a variety of agendas. Anambivalent nature of the agenda setting process is noted, when public and corporate interestsencounter, which leads to an avalanche-like growth of agendas on the federal channel andcontainment of the process in the region. The main characteristics of access points to anagenda on the federal and regional levels are highlighted by four parameters: knowledge,degree of coordination, institutionality, conformity to norms. Compliance with the public andgroup interests and conformity with the personal and group interests are fundamental amongthem. Access to the agenda coordination system, formal or informal status, legitimacy andformal character of an event are also important. Thus, the main characteristics of accesspoints to an agenda become crucial, they focus on value judgments and national interests.The real features of described events, which mutually condition and constrain each other, arebehind them.When different levels of channels set their agenda, they use direct and indirectinfluence on each other; it results in a general news model with identical thematic dominants,common forms of media presentation, similar genre composition of the news content.However, the federal TV channel is characterized by the predominance of public agenda,while personal and group agendas manifested in covering local topics and partial projectionof nationwide issues on the region are specific to the regional TV channel.