Social mechanisms of media institutions: The genesis of recipient's preferences

Within the framework of sociology of media the author explains the behavior of target audiences in the nowadays media environment, analyzes the changing nature of the relationship between the sender and the recipient of the message. The article considers the social mechanisms of the contemporary media institutions and changes in media consumption preferences of different social strata under the growing influence of communication technologies. The author believes that the digitalization determines the audience's need for explanation instead of just information. The virtual reality as a new communication platform becomes a common practice, and the audience becomes its passive participant demanding new ways of realtime access to information. The print media audience is gradually moving from constant reading of one or two mass editions to the study of a large number of specialized media. There is the same trend of the declining share of main television channels in advertising budgets due to the increasing share of specialized network channels. At the same time, advertising budgets are transferred to the mobile platforms for there is a growing need in 'big data' in real time due to the fast development of mobile electronic devices. Tablets and smartphones are attributes of the emerging media ecology that are gradually replacing television for digital generations prefer to watch the same TV content 'outside' the traditional TV environment. © V.L. Mouzykant, 2016