RUSSIAN CORPORATE MEDIA ON THE INTERNET: TRANSFORMATION OF THE METHODS OF WORK WITH THE AUDIENCE

Abstract

The article describes the practice of exploration the Internet space by Russian corporate media, and transformation the methods of working with the audience. The corporate media of six organizations, representing different types of activities (education, industry, car sales), in two Russian regions (the Republic of Tatarstan and the Samara region) were investigated. Through the example of these sources, the authors of the article have revealed, that their editors try to use the Internet space, focusing on the technological component of reporting the information about the organization to each person – by creation and maintaining the official website of the organization, groups on social networks, virtual communication in messengers. Web services, aimed at working with the audience, in order to maximize the presentation of the enterprise in a modern multimedia format, were given for comparison. Using the methods of contensive and structural analysis of the resource base of studied corporate media, the authors of the article have found that each media has its own network communication platforms, but they have different methods for attraction and holding the audience’s attention. Also, the transformation of the functions of modern corporate media was revealed. Now, the most important functions are the following: management, informative, image-building, ideological, advertising and reference functions. Using the expert survey of corporate media editors, thirteen types of attraction and holding the audience’s attention on various electronic resources of organizations were identified. In addition, it was defined the presence/absence of each of them for every type of media. The main conclusion is the following: currently, there is a transformation of the functions of corporate media, which, in order to be closer to the audience and increase its number, should regularly apply the techniques, typical for mass media, with the purpose to attract and hold the attention of the audience.