Media and socialization: Primary, secondary, or self-socialization? Experience in studying media consumption of “digital youth” in Russia
The article examines the issue of media socialization as a process of assimilation by representatives of the media audience of sociocultural norms and values dominating in society. The author attempts to consider media socialization as a complex and heterogeneous process that can be decomposed into three elements depending on the predominance of a media usage model. Thus, within the framework of media socialization, the role of the media can be considered at three levels. (1) The media act as an agent of secondary socialization, which corresponds to the basic normative understanding of media functioning in society. With this understanding, the media cannot form the basic values of a young audience, since they are not able to compete with “significant others”: parents, peers, schoolteachers, who are traditionally assigned the role of the most influential agents of primary socialization. However, the media can further correct the audience's perceptions and influence selectively, but this influence will be differentiated and will not crowd out the existing social experience. (2) The media can act as an agent of self-socialization, that is, participate in the independent choice of media channels and media resources to develop the diversified interests of the audience. (3) The media can act as an agent of primary socialization and displace the influence of “significant others”. All three types of media socialization are discussed theoretically and undergo empirical verification. The methods of empirical research were the discourse analysis of indepth interviews with representatives of the Russian “digital youth” conducted in three Russian cities: Moscow, Nizhny Novgorod, and Rostov-on-Don. The analysis made it possible to classify the respondents' answers into three types of media socialization. The result of the study was the recognition of the simultaneity of the implementation of all types of media socialization among respondents in general, the impossibility of strictly distinguishing one element from another, and at the same time, a pronounced predominance of any type of media socialization among certain respondents. At the conceptual level, it means the primacy of a person's life course in understanding media impact, and not belonging to an age cohort, social group, or type of media audience. Media socialization occurs with varying degrees of dynamics, intensity and effectiveness, and is determined by the uniqueness of the stage of a person's life course, even within the same social group or age cohort. At the same time, media socialization as a process is characterized by irreversibility and omnipresence. The author declares no conflicts of interests.