Formation of media education in Russia (from the Middle Ages to the present day)

Abstract

In a situation when digitalization becomes a new paradigm of society’s activity and cyber-physical systems are the systems that will organize social and economic space (online and offline) in the near future, an increase in media literacy among the population becomes a very urgent necessity, for, as shown by public opinion, many people do not possess elementary skills of media security and do not have sufficient media knowledge to successfully interact with other people (or, alternatively, computer or bionic systems) in a virtual or real environment. The main purpose of the paper is to show the formation and development of media education in Russia from the 12th century to the 21st century (i. e., from the moment of appearance of the first reliable written sources and up to modern times). Based on the analysis of a wide historical context, the authors explore the functional areas and main media education tools that were used at various historical stages of media education development. In addition, the paper presents data on the state of media literacy of the population in the past and present and also argues that the middle and older generations (Generation Last) are more vulnerable in their interactions with the media than the younger generations (Generation Next). Therefore, as a practical solution to the goal of increasing the overall media literacy of the population, it is suggested to use inter-network collaboration (social networking collaboration), where Generation Next will transmit relevant knowledge to Generation Last and the social networking administration will support the exchange of knowledge using positive reinforcement (for example, by assigning special public statuses to active users).