THE CRISIS OF THE REGIONAL NEWSPAPERSOF GENERAL INTEREST: THE CAUSES AND CONSEQUENCES

Falling circulation andinfluence of regional newspapers in Russia began with a late 90-ies (even before information sites onthe Internet have become commonplace). It was due not so much competition from electronic media,as with the emergence of free advertising newspapers.Paid news media had a much smaller circulation than free newspapers. And this difference in thenumber of copies each year just increased.Free newspapers have given local businesses a more efficient technology to promote their productsand services, and so quickly amassed a large portion of consumer advertising. Thus was lost thefinancial basis for the development of regional newspapers of general interest.Along with the free advertising newspapers, in 90 of the last century in the Russian regions havespread federal newspapers with local information application of major Russian newspapers. Developingrapidly TV guides.If free local newspapers deprived regional newspapers of general interest most of the advertisers,federal newspapers with local information application redistributed readership. They offered readersthe content of higher quality at relatively low prices.These two factors - the distribution of free advertising newspapers and federal newspapers withlocal information application - predetermined the fate of a large number of regional newspapers ofgeneral interest. From this point of view, a crisis for them started much earlier than experts talkingabout it, that is, before the era of mass distribution of the Internet, federal and local information andinformation and entertainment websites.Change in approaches to the problem of competition among the media. Earlier this competitionwas seen as extremely useful phenomenon that facilitates the development of democracy and pluralism.It often suggests that a large number of media can not always be regarded as a boon to citizens ofa country. The more newspapers - so they are weaker, the worse the content, the more fragmentedadvertising market and audience.Some experts believe that not all newspapers can and should be in business. But this does notmean that these newspapers are useless for various social groups and society as a whole. The mainthing - that the society existed a consensus understanding of what the newspapers do socially importantfunctions. But the problem is that the social functions of the printing press also need to be rethoughtand refined.Regional newspapers of general interest can themselves do much to redefine its role in a changingworld. But for this they have left not much time.

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