Ukrainian TV Content: Between an Alarm Clock and an Elephant

Abstract

Modern television, as one of the most spectacular and popular, and therefore insidious types of mass media, offering the audience mostly not so much entertaining, but simple content, acts as a carrier of two layers of content (the division is based on the humorous but quite serious assumption of the Ukrainian professor Z. Partico): content elephant (low quality) and content alarm clock (serious). The communication-technological and socio-social foundations of the functional characteristics of these types of presentation of material in television programs are analyzed. The article examines the peculiarities of the fragmentation of a television audience, depending on which type of the content this audience prefers. The theoretical principle of the secondary audience analysis is assessed, and a general assessment of the current state of both fragmentation and polarization of the Ukrainian television audience is given. It has been argued that the fragmentation of the audience that prefers the content elephant is more advanced than is generally recognized. Polarization, the trend towards a channel audience of supporters and viewers, is also evident. It is suggested that these two layers of content constitute a kind of a double danger zone, which generates both a large, but loyal, and a small, but disloyal audience. Loyalty to specific content and audience fragmentation depending on the chosen layer of the content affects the popularity of a particular TV media and has well-defined social consequences. Selected results of the sociological research «The attitude of journalists to the creation and functioning of civil television at the local level in Ukraine» are presented. The results indicate the reluctance of modern television journalists to introduce such communication and technological innovations that could influence the audience and provide it with the opportunity to receive quality content in a modern technological exposition.