Media and social conflicts: theoretical and methodological challenges of an interdisciplinary approach

Abstract

Currently, the study of social conflicts in the media environment is becoming increasingly relevant: large-scale mediatization has significantly changed the course and consequences of any kind of social processes, including those with conflict potential. However, as the critical analysis of the relevant scientific discourse carried out in this article shows, there are many gaps in the existing body of literature, the appearance of which is caused by both objective and subjective reasons. The insufficient level of scientific development of social conflicts in the media is associated both with the imperfection of the methodological tools and with the historically established traditions of the scientific field. The extreme heterogeneity of the “field” of this kind of research is obvious, due primarily to the phenomenological complexity of the object – social conflicts unfolding in the media environment. On the one hand, the interpretation of any kind of data on the representation of conflicts in the mass media is possible and often takes place within the framework of the institutional-normative approach. On the other hand, scientists often implement approaches that only record the influence of the media on unfolding conflicts. In this article, as part of the study of representations of social conflicts in the media, the question is raised about the need to shift the focus of research attention from media texts to the figure of a person – both as a recipient of numerous conflict messages and as a participant in any conflict media discourse, which, thanks to digital technologies, itself turns into a separate subject of media communication. In particular, it seems very fruitful to intensify research into the causes of the audience’s behavior – their making decisions that contribute to the escalation of the conflict or its relief. A separate important scientific direction is the development of memory issues at the level of personal and, further, group experience associated with certain conflict contexts, most often represented in the media. These studies can get a legitimate epistemological perspective, which is to study the trauma of participants in a mediated conflict and/or audiences/communities receiving such information through traditional or new media. The application of interdisciplinary approaches can open up original promising directions for further research. Modern media research discourse, which traditionally exists within the framework of contentanalytical methods and is focused on the study of media texts, should be supplemented by attracting the methodological achievements of modern psychology, economics, anthropology, ethnography, which will significantly enrich the research process aimed at mastering the essence of social conflicts in the media and understanding the impact of media representations of the conflict on the audience and on the modern person as a whole.