Functional Specificity Of Media-Communications In Youth Environment

Abstract

The article is devoted to the analysis of the specifics of communication in the youth environment using visual means of communication. As the most representative differential feature that distinguishes different forms of communication, the need is considered to build contextual means with verbal means. In the oral form of communication, the two communicants initially had a common context, while the written form assumed the construction of the context and its potential absence in the second communicant. The emergence of various hybrid forms of communication - distant verbal (telephone, then video), instant written (exchanging messages in Internet messengers using a smartphone and computer), as well as the possibility of creolized communication – sharing video content as an equivalent and replacing words / phrases - eliminated the need building a joint context and completely changed the way of communication, giving rise to the phenomenon of non-unique messages, exchanges of precedents. Studying the communication of modern youth with the example of undergraduate journalism students has shown that many of them resort to creoleized forms of communication. At the same time, the context of communication with a certain person acquires a certain independent value: since the adjustment of the context has ceased to be functional, the dialogue is carried out as if “in the cloud”, and a situation is possible in which the same interlocutors conduct several different dialogs in different means of communication, and each dialogue has its own independent context and its own.

Keywords: Communicationcontextcreolizationmedia communications

Introduction

Problem Statement

The communication of modern young people, active users of smartphones and social networks, overcame the time factor due to the development of technologies: minus technical problems, modern people can communicate at any distance between them without a time gap. This leads to the creation of creolized forms of communication: with the development of the capabilities of instant messengers, distant written communication is included in the use-case format: a message is no longer unique.

Research Questions

The questions in this study include:

Purpose of the Study

The purpose of this study is to:

Research Methods

In the study of the problems identified above, surveys and interviews, questionnaires for undergraduate and graduate students were used to establish the content of their communication, diversification of communication technologies and various methods of communication.

Findings

Modern technologies offer a person an unprecedentedly diversified number of communication options: there are several types of messengers linked to social networks or existing independently, each of which at the same time supports the option of video communication, text communication, sending voice messages, sending photos, pictures, links, etc. (Huws, 2003; Jenkins, 2008).

A survey among 118 undergraduate students (56 boys and 62 girls, ages 18 to 23 years old) showed that there are no certain preferences in favor of a single means of communication, more precisely, communication is structured as follows: if necessary, contact a specific person uses a specific messenger. Usually this is due to the moment of the first contact with this person: since all messengers keep the message chain, it is convenient to continue communication from the moment at which it stopped, and in the vast majority of cases it does not matter when it stopped: yesterday, an hour ago or a year ago. So, students indicated that among their active interlocutors there are people who are always in touch on a social network, and there are those who prefer the WhatsApp messenger, and, in principle, the technical capabilities of both communication channels are the same.

According to the respondents, the significant difference between communicating on a social network and communicating in an independent messenger is as follows: accepting an application as a friend on a social network, a person gives access not only to correspondence, but also to his account, and to all its content. Despite the widespread fashion for registering in social networks, there is a fairly large group of people, especially older people (in the case of students, these are teachers) who do not want to give access to their personal information or simply do not have an account on a social network (as an option, account, in no way connected with his name and surname), therefore, a person with a smartphone can communicate with a number of his interlocutors through instant messengers that are not related to social networks, and with others through social networks (Antonovskiy & Barash, 2019). Interviewees also noted the following trend. The development of mobile communications and instant messengers has led to the fact that the first place in communication was written, not oral: the next stage of development after “where are you?” (invasion of personal space) and "can you talk?" (this question arouses a joke reaction among a number of interlocutors like “yes, from the age of three”) began exchanging preliminary messages in the messenger or even resolving the issue through written communication, bypassing verbal communication. Talking on the phone by many students is perceived as an invasion of personal space - a person calls me, not knowing where I am, what I am doing, and whether I can receive the call. Due to the specifics of their studies and combining studies with work, a student journalist can be at a conference, at a lecture, at a briefing, etc. - that is, stay in the mode “I can read messages and answer them, but I can not speak.” This, however, is also characteristic of representatives of various other professions (Rtishcheva & Shikaleva, 2019; Somkin, 2019). As a result, many conversations that could be carried out orally are carried out in writing, which, of course, gives a number of advantages (which provokes its expansion). Firstly, when communicating in the messenger, the message history is saved, which allows you to restore the context of the discussion of the problem (the message history, as it were, took over the function of setting up the context, which was characteristic of previously distant written communication). Secondly, the organization of instant messengers allows you to create conversations and general chats, when a number of interlocutors communicate on some common topic, while there is no need to break away from any other activities. Various programs suggest a mode of oral communication in the format of a conference, but in this case some kind of distraction from the main lesson is required, which is not always available to the interlocutor.

Finally, the written form of communication forms a fundamentally new format that is directly related to the peculiarities of the information space: secondary messages, sending pictures, memes, photographs, videos, etc. seen to your interlocutors of social networks or other segments of the Internet. This sign is a complete message - the students surveyed demonstrated dialogs in which the answer to a specific question or request is not a direct answer, but a secondary one - sending some kind of picture, meme, etc. Moreover, it’s more and more common. The annihilated version of the answer-picture (and sometimes the request-picture) has a fundamentally different nature than, for example, reposting the same picture on its wall in social networks. Using a picture as a message, a person sends it not to all users of a social network, not urbi et orbi, but to a specific interlocutor, in response to the words spoken by them in a particular situation. A survey of students showed that in most cases a funny picture, gif-message, meme from the Internet, etc. are not used as a full-fledged message, but as a reason to amuse their friends. At the same time, the majority of respondents noted that they rarely repost such pictures and memes, and they often send them to friends: as one of the students explained, reposting a picture implies that it already expresses a person’s position, his creed, and sending to friends (often not accompanied by any text) is an implicit message with the meaning "look, what a funny picture I found."

Thus, the creolization of messages in messengers and social networks gives rise to another curious phenomenon - the message becomes not original. A person does not send his own text as a message, but sends someone generated content - text, visual, creole - as an expression of his position (Bkhat & Ryabova, 2019). In part, this exchange of creoleized messages is reminiscent of telling jokes in oral format: telling a joke that is appropriate to the situation, a person does not claim authorship: he reproduces a precedent text (Kazyaba & Barmina, 2020). New communication formats have generated not just a case-law text, but the phenomenon of case-law communication: entire message chains can be an exchange of pictures and memes representing case-law messages. As a result, there is a kind of exchange of secondary (and tertiary) messages: the interlocutors send each other not only pictures, but also, for example, screenshots of pictures with comments: opinions about the problem multiply, an answer to the opinion appears, etc. Some students interviewed during the study indicated that they did not resort to creolized communication, but only text messages - as one of the interviewees noted, “we came here to learn how to write texts, so I write texts”. However, it should also be indicated that only one out of 118 respondents had such a position.

Secondary and creolization of communication are inextricably linked: most students send messages of a mixed type (text + picture) or only visual content mixed with text messages. For the most part, message authors do not produce visual content themselves, but pass it on, sometimes partially changing or adapting to their situation. Partial creolization of communication should include the use of ready-made emoji emoticons common in various messengers - the emoticon reflects the emotion, sometimes replaces words or accompanies them (Kotov et al., 2019). Emoticons are not original content, they creolize the message, creating the option “text + visual content”, but many people perceive them as the equivalent of words - they are less complex and easier to read than photography.

The prevalence of multimedia communication tools leads to interesting consequences regarding the limitation of video communication: although the vast majority of modern instant messengers allow you to communicate via video, most people prefer not to do this in the case of working communication, but it makes it possible to communicate via video when talking to a loved one. This feature gained an unexpected angle in connection with the transition to distance learning during the quarantine period in universities: if the lesson is conducted through those platforms that allow students to enable video broadcasting from their home, many of them not only prefer not to do this, but they explicitly ask the teacher Never connect a video. Answers to the question about the reason for this rejection were received: “I do not want to be seen at home,” “I have a mess,” etc., however, after a collective discussion, the students came to the conclusion that the matter was somewhat different. Yes, of course, many people go to classes online without proper preparation: they are not dressed, not combed, the girls did not apply makeup, etc. However, the root of the problem lies elsewhere: a person, going “to people” (to an institute, to work) builds a certain image relevant for this team and within it. This image may have little correlation with his image “for himself”: the house, before the distribution of video communications, was an absolutely closed space into which a person allowed only those whom he could “open up” (Thseen & Sefa, 2019). A video call makes it possible for anyone to see this protected, closed space, which provokes the rejection of video communication, also perceived as a shameless intrusion into a person’s personal space.

As a result, multimedia, secondary and creolized character of communication “crystallize” the image created by a person even more: he can maintain a certain image not only in direct communication, but also when writing text messages, sending photos and pictures. Some features of multimedia communication are less supported by communicating, since they imply an invasion of personal space and the destruction of the built image.

Conclusion

A study of the specifics of their use of media communications in interpersonal and professional communication among undergraduate and graduate students in the field of "Journalism" revealed a number of specific trends that are characteristic of the modern period of the spread of mobile communications and various communication channels.

1. Young people for the most part support the creolized model of communication: the text is combined with visual content, often the visual material is an independent message, or is accompanied by text commentary. In some cases, secondary and tertiary textual reactions occur: a chain of comments, some of which also represent visual content.

2. Creolization of communication is inextricably linked with the modern phenomenon, which can be called “precedent communication”: young people prefer to exchange non-original content, transferring to each other pictures, photos, videos, etc. created by them, reflecting their mood, condition, something their interested, etc.

3. The peculiarity of young people associated with the field of mass media in their commitment to verification of information - people who work with sources require confirmation of the information received.

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