Public Health in Russian Medias Edit Programs: Results of an Experiment

Abstract

The article is a part of a work series dealing with media studies of formation of the institute of public health. The concept of the institute includes public efforts intended to support and provide for the health of the population, which is impossible without the Media’s participation. However, due to various reasons, the Mass Media can’t currently be active participants in the field of public health. One of these reasons is that many media-agents don’t realize their opportunities, goals and objectives, which results in a lack of practical methods and algorithms of work. The purpose of the article is to report the pilot test of a specially designed theoretical model of the media’s operation as stakeholder of the institute of public health. This model in the present context is understood as a particular form of scholarly knowledge consisting of a number of constructs that meet the objectives of the study. With the opportunities of journalism in terms of systemic reporting public health issues previously studied by the author, the theoretical model is aimed at long-term EDIT programs that take into account the impact of the competitive environment. It also adds to the Media’s approaches to coverage of public health issues, and helps to find ways of solving strategic and tactic tasks related to covering the future information agenda. The method of pilot-testing chosen to check the efficiency of the model is one of the most complicated methods of empirical research. The pilot test itself was all-Russian contest of EDIT programs of the mass media and blog-sphere "Public health: its purpose, themes, and genres". The process and analyzed results of the pilot-testing prove the efficiency of the theoretical model, as well as provide practical propositions and demonstrate more opportunities for the mass media to cover the theme of public health.