The Phenomenon of Media Noise: Riskiness of Background Media Consumption

The author of the article presents the concept of media noise as a risk-generating phenomenon. She defines the introduced concept; identifies and analyzes modern risk factors determining the problem of background media consumption, especially media consumption by children and adolescents; describes the conceptual and methodological foundations of the study of media noise as the degree of the saturation of a living space with media signals that distress and exploit the organs of perception. On the basis of theoretical approaches to the understanding of media, communication, noise, information overload, and information stress available in science, the author deduces the concept of media noise. The article analyzes the results of third party empirical studies of the practice of media consumption, which reveal the problematic aspects of forcing the consumption of media signal as a background of life. The author notes that the widespread use of media, particularly audio content (including audio ads, playing music in public, active background screens, etc.), is correlated with the problem of new forms of violence and violations of the space of personal autonomy. The article presents the results of a pilot study of the dependence of the degree of media noise and the level of anxiety in children aged 16-17. The author shows correlations between individual parameters (factors) of media noise; lists the main social situations of children's forced consumption of media as a background; notes the potential of background media consumption to model social situations ("turn on" the situation "I am at home" or "we are traveling") and become an adaptation strategy; and determines the directions and prospects of further research of the problem of the use of media as a background of life activity and of the study of the emotionality of audio content in relation to the formation of the social pattern of media consumption.

Keywords

Authors

References