FUNCTIONING OF TV IN SOCIETY (an analysis of conceptual approaches)

Abstract

The article analyses different conceptual approaches to the problem of functioning of TV in modern society. Most problems that Russian TV has to face today have already been examined and discussed by foreign researchers specialising in the theory of mass communications, soci­ology and cultural theory and study. The author supposes that some explanatory models can help to understand what happens with Russian TV today.The article presents theoretical conceptions and conclusions from empirical research in the frame of sociological study of mass media that focuses on the connections and relations be­tween TV and society. This interdependence guarantees the balance between the freedom of information and the control over it. The researchers accept the inevitability of historical trans­formation of forms of both freedom and control. All this depends on lots of factors, but before all on the status of the mass media in society.The basic models of functioning of TV in society ( American, European, Soviet) analysed in the article show that every social system controls the mass media. TV just like all the other institutions of the mass communication system serves the political, social and economic inter­ests of the ruling class. Sometimes the government directly censors the work of the mass me­dia, other times the mechanism is less direct and more subtle - an economic or a commercial one.In the system of the competitive market the chief way of control of TV is advertisement. It influences the work of TV by means of a special order or demand. For example, TV news programs loose their ideological content and become pseudo-neutral, as they are directed to­wards the majority of the mass auditory. But such stereotyped and non-ideological information can devaluate the social mission of TV, although it serves the interests of the men of business. As a result TV can loose all its auditory altogether. To prevent it some sensational facts are added to the stream of sterilised information ( mostly the descriptions of crimes, sexual mania, pornography, nihilism and so on ). All that is done to attract the public to the advertised prod­ucts and news programs. The moral principles are sacrificed to the commercial goals.But that is only one problem of relations between TV and society. The other one is that in any social system TV is not only controlled by social forces, but is also a major institution of social control itself. TV performs these functions influencing the public mind, shaping the public opinion with the help of certain ideas, norms, values and ways of behaviour that it spreads across the society. The article based on the results of studies of American sociologists describes the mechanisms of influence of TV on mass conciousness.