Local Press as a Bond of Social Spaces

The article is a conceptualization of the "topology" of the local press, namely the physical space and the social space, filled with human interaction and relationships. Journalistic messages in news feeds are designed to reduce the indeterminacy of information recipients, to orient them in the social field and at the scene. Localizing topical issues, journalists adapt their texts to the linguistic and cultural characteristics of the local audience. The author substantiates the scientific productivity of interdisciplinary approaches in the study of the spatial dimensions of media texts. Localization as determining the location/position of something in space is the most important operation in journalistic activity. Localization is one of the basic competencies of journalists, who are to orient themselves in the terrain and to orient their audience. Reading maps and field reconnaissance must be taught from the student's bench. Localization involves adapting texts to the linguistic and cultural characteristics of the local audience. The localized material is obviously interesting to the reader and is guaranteed to be read. One of the ways to restore the audience's confidence in media texts and in journalism as a profession is to go out into the field, dive into the thick of things, explore local characteristics, and discover new spaces. Journalism that does not go beyond Moscow is an unpromising activity that will soon be replaced by robotic programs. The author's content analysis shows that readers of news feeds of city portals scroll down to the end of the text if it is on a relevant topic and is connected with a geographically close area. Just as creative alliances of web designers, cartographers, and reporters generate new products in data journalism and infographics, the interdisciplinary interaction of media studies and geography presents new opportunities for scientific analysis of journalistic texts and information visualization. Research tools for such an analysis are still being developed, and the inclusion of geotags, the categorical apparatus of locations, topoi, and other spatial measures in the media researcher's toolbox promises to make media geography another direction or section of the theory of journalism.

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