JOURNALISM: PROFESSION IN THE MIRROR OF THE WORLD MODEL

The inner world of a journalist is formed in interaction with the world outside - the environment, other people, the whole surrounding reality (in the broad sense of the word). The central part of a person’s mental life is a model of the world - an idea of ​​the world and of itself in it. This model is comprehensive; more often we deal with its fragments, instant cuts, which psychologists call the picture of the world (sometimes it is identified with the mentality, general mentality, “matrix” of the spiritual life of people). Drawing a picture of the world, recreating its model, a person not only realizes his own problems, but also begins to understand nature more deeply, to comprehend the needs of society. As a result, an integral system of ideas that influences the practical activity of a person can arise in his mind.

According to one of America’s largest public figures and journalists, W. Lippman, who published more than ten million words, a mature person perceives the world as it is. Contemporaries recalled that it was a special vision of events that elevated Lippmann over his colleagues.

The issue of a holistic worldview for a journalist today is more important than ever before. The media create a mosaic picture of reality. This fragmentation is not only reproduced by a journalist, but also affects the structure of his personality, replacing a system of deep knowledge and values ​​with a set of mobile, often illusory attitudes. “Blip culture” (“blip” is a single flash of reflection of reality in human consciousness) also distorts our ideas. A model of the world, built of randomly highlighted blips, is unstable and alienates its creator from reality. At the end of the 20th century, another tendency was revealed, connected with the erosion of realistic forms of reflection of reality: life is perceived as a game, which also includes journalists. They combine the elements snatched from reality, replacing the fact with an arbitrary interpretation.

Of course, a journalist is not a philosopher, and he is not faced with the task of creating an exhaustively complete picture of the universe. But he is able to put his piece of the mosaic in it in such a way that it preserves both integrity and meaning. Here is an example: the authoritative Swiss newspaper “Neue Zürcher Zeitung” considers the formation of a holistic picture of the world represented by extensive and colorful information about reality to be its most important goal.

Building a model of the environment, the journalist forms the core of his personal world, his “I-image” and “I-concept”. And if the “I-image” is emotional, then the “I-concept” is conscious, systemic, it presupposes a person’s understanding of their capabilities, self-esteem, and understanding of external factors affecting it. Thus, the model of the world connects the external and the internal in our consciousness.

In 1998, the Russian press published material about a modern journalistic dynasty. E. Yakovlev (then founder and editor-in-chief of Obshchaya Gazeta), V. Yakovlev (founder of the Kommersant publishing house) and A. Yakovlev (founder and editor of Way to Me magazine) shared with readers their ideas about the role and place man in a changing world. It was about what kind of life circumstances best placed us in understanding our highest purpose, how to choose between spiritual balance and well-being, whether it is possible to achieve complete harmony and unity of the external and the internal.

Thus, the professional career of E. Yakovlev demonstrated that he modeled reality primarily as an arena of struggle (first for the improvement of the existing system). The journalist could not improve the system, but he contributed to the destruction of the system, which did not suit him. After perestroika, E. Yakovlev is again in opposition. The young generation of the Yakovlevs explains this “vicious circle” situation by lagging in the process of acquiring inner experience, treating it as something secondary. A. Yakovlev considers it extremely important for a person to find the strength to look inside himself, to correlate his external manifestations, actions with internal decisions, with the results of self-knowledge. Perhaps here lies the secret of journalistic honesty.

In this context, in our opinion, another parameter of the model of the world, which psychologists call the admissible world, is important. For a journalist, this is a kind of lens. Using it, he focuses attention and assesses what is happening. Refer to the illustration. In the documentary “The Khatyn story” by A. Adamovich, who told about the tragedy of the Belarusian people during the Second World War (every fourth Belarusian died then), there is such a hero - Flera Gaishun. After a severe contusion, he loses his sight, starts to hear poorly. It would seem that the wall erected by the mutilation should forever isolate it from the present and even more so from the past, where the villages burned down by the Nazis, the women, the old people and the children were shot. The opposite happens. Blind Gaishun is “forever open, alone with the world! And with himself, with his memory ... "[20]. He does not accept people who have "eyes like a chicken," able to see only what is near. Antipodes of Fleura are the characters of another Adamovich story "The Punishers". For punitive society is rapidly being dehumanized, and violence turns into its completely acceptable component. This clash of worlds clarifies the creative and civic position of Adamovich himself, rejecting fascism in all its manifestations.

The model of the world and the picture of the world are fundamentally significant for a journalist: he relays them to readers, listeners, and viewers. Therefore, it is far from indifferent what the main value is for the correspondent. Such can be himself, which corresponds to the egocentric level of morality. However, excessive concentration on one's “I”, detachment from the environment often destroys a professional. Popular in our country, the author A. Marinin in the novel “I died yesterday” creates an image of a journalist who is completely absorbed in fear for his own life. Unable to overcome this feeling, he loses the ability to reason, feeling like a "living dead person in the live air" and hoping that the audience will not notice. But the TV screen is hard to fool. A presenter appears before the audience, who, as a person, is simply absent, and who, asking the first question that came to mind, waits indifferently until the interlocutor with sin in half gets out of the answer. Gradually lost skill, work, friends ...

The inner circle of a journalist (group level) sometimes plays the role of a dominant. Responsibility to colleagues, corporate ethics, commitment to the interests of the party or clan - a powerful incentive for professional activity. There are also such employees of the media, for whom not only other people act as the highest value, but also all living things. Such a humanistic approach is traditional for Russian journalism. In recent decades, the flow of environmental publications has increased. This tendency turned out to be very contradictory: it not only reflected the change in attitude, but also found a knot of closely intertwined political and legal problems, the solution of which can be very painful.

A journalist can assess the outside world in different ways, which is able to look quite clear or, on the contrary, difficult, requiring forceful intervention, overcoming. Romanticism of youth is inherent in novice press workers. Here is an excerpt from an essay by a very young author: “The child has become an adult. He traveled through cities and villages, climbed cliffs, plunged into the bitter waves of the ocean, suffered and fought with people who shared his joys and sorrows, and he understood how the world was moving ... ”This naivety passes with time. Fanaticism is much more dangerous. He pushes a person to the destruction (including moral) of everything that is alien and incomprehensible to him. Recall how in M. Bulgakov’s novel The Master and Margarita the critic fell upon the Master with the articles The Enemy Under the Wing of the Editor, calling for a hard blow on the Bogomaz that dragged Pilatchine into the press.

The creative potential of a journalist who is endowed not with one-dimensional, but with a complex, developed inner world is most fully manifested.

The components of the model of the world differ from each other, but their composition is quite stable: the motives (what motivates us to act and for what it is carried out), ideals, beliefs, worldview, the purpose of human life and its meaning. On this basis, there are more or less long-term prospects, strategies and scenarios for the behavior of a journalist, an action program and sets of actions that he performs as a professional.

In the perception of one journalist, the habitat is narrowed down to the directly observable ordinariness, in the mind of another it becomes the size of the Universe. According to L.G. Svitich, “the press is omnipotent, if understood as the terrestrial model of the information galaxy of the cosmos. And then the specificity of journalism, unlike other professions, is that it creates a picture of the world, encodes information that happens on Earth ... and transmits cosmic information, space programs for the development of society and man to people ”[21].

A special mindset of a journalist is associated with such a vision of the world, a special mentality is cosmocentric. Possession of them is a sure sign of talent and skill. Thus, the creativity of the idol of the reading public of recent years is permeated by the sensation of a breakthrough into the Universe. E. Rich. Scientific observer J. Golovanov, who devoted many publications to astronautics, unlike his colleagues, avoids “jubilee” topics: he is interested in the relationship between earthlings and the galaxy. One of the first local journalists who turned our attention to the “starry sky overhead” was V. Peskov. The dawn burning over the forest, dry lightning, light pouring from the bucket of the Big Dipper, do not serve as a commonplace verbal decoration for it. They turn both the author and the reader into witnesses to the hard work of the creation of the world.

The planetary model explaining the position of a journalist in the sphere of global information flows is concretized in various political, economic, and socio-cultural conditions. So, in the second half of the XX century. An idea has emerged of several types of journalism related to the emergence, development, and change of socio-economic formations. “Western” (capitalist) correlated with the idea of ​​free enterprise; “Eastern” (Soviet, communist) was associated with the control of the mass media of the party and the state. The model of “development journalism” (it took shape in the countries of Asia, Africa and Latin America) united the features of the first two: activity, independence, initiative of the journalist was intended to promote national construction, headed by the state. Each of these options for the functioning of the media assumed a special vision of journalistic professionalism.

But any standards are filled with vivid content in the activities of specific journalists, in a certain way evaluating a particular social system and their place in it. Here we should pay attention to the fact that the interaction of mass media and the structures that make up the social organism develops in two directions: public (institutional) and auditorial. In one case, the information moves towards the audience; in the second - from citizens to political, power, commercial and other structures. Ideally, both of these flows should be balanced, ensuring the circulation of information in society. The danger lies in the unidirectional distribution of messages, increasingly occurring vertically, from top to bottom (for example, from the authorities to the population). In this case, the need for people to tell contemporaries about themselves is ignored. More promising are the so-called horizontal links, which expand informational exchanges between groups that form a social organism.

In carrying out his professional duties, the journalist always finds himself at the point of intersection of the interests of society, the individual and groups. He has to choose a certain style of behavior, building relationships with the legislative, executive, judicial authorities, political organizations, institutions, publishers, and mass media distributors. He can act as a subject, object and means of information process.

In line with the institutional flow, journalists, as social actors, perform a service-professional function. They perform editorial tasks using knowledge and skills and following a public duty. In addition, the issue of their livelihood is also important. At the same time, the realization of a creative function that involves self-knowledge, self-realization and self-development in the process of creating journalistic works takes place. In relation to the founder and advertiser, a media employee can serve as a means of transmitting information and an object of influence. The latter is differently refracted in certain historical conditions, and also depends on the journalist’s individual understanding of his most important task. So, in the 1960s. in our country, the leadership called journalists "party henchmen", and in the 1970s Already in the USA, scientists have started talking about the danger of turning their journalists into simple cogs of "information factories", into "gray, dull, flattering conformists."

The perceptions of media workers about their place in the social division of labor depend on how deeply they understand the specifics of the social-role characteristics of journalism [22].

The production and economic role of the press is manifested, in particular, in the fact that both the qualifications of the correspondent and the information received by him have a certain value; here lies the eternal contradiction between the creative content of press texts and the commodity form of its presentation to the consumer. The regulating role implies the involvement of the press employee in relations connected with the system of power, his intermediary functions in resolving conflicts between managers and controlled, and the spiritual ideological role gives grounds to recall about the "intellectual" (in the high sense of the word) character of the profession, designed to preserve spiritual values. This does not contradict the self-actualization of the journalist as a master who creates the existence of culture. The ideological fullness of journalistic activities and the responsibility of a journalist for the consequences of his publications are connected with the spiritual and ideological role. With the formation of a picture of the world correlates the information and communicative role that connects a person with modern reality and with events that are distant from him in time.

In practice, these roles are closely intertwined, and each edition performs them in a peculiar way. What roles are really characteristic of 90s journalists and what they would like to play in the multi-faced theater of the media? According to researchers, they have retained their prestige positions as a spokesman for public opinion, commentator, informant. Increased interest in specializations focused on recreational media functions. There are fewer of those who consider their work to be exclusively political, and they call themselves the plenipotentiary of society. The desire to be objective analysts who are “above the fray” has increased. The number of self-expressing artists has decreased. At the same time, a comparative analysis of the views of Russian and American journalists on their profession demonstrated a great focus of our compatriots on the disclosure of their own creative potential [23].

If we consider the position of a journalist in a narrower slice of reality, on the axis of the communicator - the mass media, several statuses inherent in him draw attention to themselves (this concept can be interpreted as a certain state of a person, his place in a particular system) objective in the impartial image of reality; another seems to be the main task of summarizing, identifying the logic and interrelations of events; the third prefers the appearance of a person recommending, “trying on” authority; for the fourth, the meaning of professional aspirations becomes the influence on the situation, the real assistance to social changes.

The journalist needs to realize himself not only in the world, society, the media system, but also in the professional community. An analysis of professional stratification in the media once again demonstrates how versatile this work is, especially since the interprofessional and intraprofessional division of the journalistic community presents a very diverse picture. It presents those who perform editorial, organizational, authoring work, specialists in computer science and engineering services, as well as those associated with marketing in the mass media, promoting the promotion of a specific product to its consumer and, consequently, profit.

Поскольку журналистская деятельность многоаспектна, ей присуща иерархия и творческая (редактор и журналист), и административно-управленческая (владельцы СМИ, генеральные директора, менеджеры среднего звена и т.д.). Исключительно многообразны варианты внутрипрофессиональной стратификации, отражающие как индивидуальный творческий потенциал журналистов, так и их специализацию, формы включения в работу конкретного издания, теле- и радиокомпании.

С аудиторным потоком информации соотносится несколько схем, обобщающих типичные представления работников СМИ об их отношениях с адресатами выступлений: журналист над аудиторией («учитель»); рядом с аудиторией («поставщик информации»); внутри аудитории («равноправный собеседник»). Автор либо ценит в читателе личность, либо цинично рассматривает его в качестве «вещи». Взаимодействие журналист – аудитория может носить односторонний, сугубо «вертикальный» характер и реализоваться в форме информационного давления, отчуждения. Тогда на телезрителя смотрят холодные глаза ментора, изрекающего непреложные истины. Обратная связь в СМИ становится для ее участников одной из форм взаимного воспитания, просвещения, диалога, партнерства или, в зависимости от типа СМИ, развлечения, отдыха, релаксации.

Лучших российских журналистов всегда отличало трепетное отношение к читателю. Несколько десятилетий назад Т. Тэсс писала, что газетчику открывают душу, как врачу: надеются на его решение, ждут приговора, помощи, поддержки, защиты. В нем видят друга. В 1990-е гг. мы пока еще ощущаем отголоски этой тенденции, хотя многое уже стало достоянием прошлого. Так, корреспондент общероссийской газеты «Трибуна» Д. Шеваров, видимо, выразил не только свое мнение, когда в исповедальной статье заявил, что он в долгу перед читателями: все реже и реже после выступлений прессы случается добро. Уважение к аудитории сохраняется и в тех сегментах системы СМИ, которые, казалось бы, призваны не сохранять старое, а разрушать его. В. Ворошилов, размышляя о будущем интеллектуальных игр на телевидении, высказал мнение о том, что подобные передачи – явление чисто российское, так как только в нашей стране есть телезрители, способные думать в свободное время.

Но современное развитие масс медиа (как в России, так и за рубежом) заставляет нас вспоминать персонажа книги Р. Сильвестра «Вторая древнейшая профессия», вышедшей в Лондоне в 1950 г. Речь идет о Мистере Ходжмене – владельце газеты «Глоб», великом знатоке Обывателя: «Мистер понимал Обывателя, потому что умел мыслить, как Обыватель. Так он, в сущности, и мыслил. С некоторыми вариациями, разумеется, – за счет особенностей характера и культурных наслоений. Он знал, что нужно Обывателю, чего он жаждет и чего страшится, потому что то же нужно было и ему и он сам жаждал и страшился того же»[24]. Опасность такого полного растворения журналиста в обезличенной массе не стоит сбрасывать со счета. Достижение подлинного доверия аудитории – процесс сложный, длительный, требующий полной творческой самоотдачи автора, ведущего или редактора.

В общении с читателями, слушателями, зрителями журналиста подстерегают и ловушки другого рода. Так, сотрудник СМИ может превратиться в механического посредника между анонимной властью и столь же анонимной аудиторией или же стать манипулятором, навязывающим массам чужое мировоззрение и ретранслирующим им псевдореальность.

Что же помогает избежать подобной профессиональной деформации?

Как уже отмечалось, среди ведущих компонентов картины мира находятся мотивационные структуры . Вопрос мотивации – животрепещущий для российских журналистов. Важно не только то, что и как человек делает, но и почему он поступает так, а не иначе. Выбор мотива бывает осознанным или неосознанным. Но в любом случае он определяет направленность деятельности, придает личностный смысл ее целям, а также входящим в нее отдельным действиям и операциям. Не следует путать реальный мотив и мотивировку, которая звучит из уст самого человека, – часто она бывает далека от его истинных побуждений.

There are motives associated with the satisfaction of basic (bio-psychophysical) needs, as well as those that determine the interaction of this individual with others; most prominent are those that are due to the aspiration of the individual to higher values. The former are called intraindividual, the latter - interindividual, and the third - metaindividual.

What was the main driving force in the activities of Russian journalists in the 90s. our century? Sociologists have found that domestic media workers are focused primarily on other people. The labor motivation connected with professional self-realization was very clearly manifested. The role of material incentives has increased, the importance of spiritual ones has somewhat decreased [25].

Проблема выбора для сотрудника прессы связана и с определением им своих идеологических позиций. Они выражаются в приверженности к различным социально-политическим и профессиональным идеологиям. Последние соотносятся с тем, как он понимает социально-ролевые характеристики СМИ.

Если представить картину мира журналиста в виде пирамиды, то наряду с перечисленными компонентами у ее вершины находятся убеждения – представления, знания, идеи, превратившиеся в мотивы поведения человека и определяющие его отношение к реальности. Убеждения синтезируют в себе глубоко усвоенные знания, их эмоциональную окрашенность, волю, иначе говоря, являются сплавом рационального, эмоционального и волевого начал в человеке.

Содержание убеждений идеального журналиста может быть различным, но, как демонстрирует опыт истории, «журналистика есть дело сначала общественное, а затем уже производственное или личное. Не осознав себя человеком, у которого в руках находится мощное средство воздействия на современников и потомков, их объединения или, наоборот, разъединения, не ощутив полноту ответственности перед обществом и людьми, сотрудник редакции не может считать себя зрелым профессионалом» [26] .

The formation of beliefs is inseparable from the system of values ​​(this concept is interpreted by philosophers as the value of the subject for a person), under the influence of which the creative process is carried out. The journalist cannot shut himself up only within the framework of pure utilitarianism, to disengage from socio-political, cognitive, moral ideals. The realization of general civilization values ​​(freedom of spirit, thought, conscience) is connected with his understanding of such a complex and contradictory phenomenon as freedom of the press.

Свобода печати может быть рассмотрена в контексте личных или политических свобод. В первом случае очерчивается круг тех видов деятельности, где журналист относительно независим от государственного вмешательства, во втором – высвечивается та грань журналистской профессии, которая подлежит регламентации и ограничениям. Без определения отношения журналиста к свободе печати его профессиональная картина мира была бы неполной. Сложившиеся подходы к проблеме –революционно-демократический, предпринимательский, классово-политический и правовой – демонстрируют различное осознание ее значимости для работников прессы. Одни видят в свободе печати абсолютную независимость от власти, другие – право на промысел, третьи – привилегию класса или партии, четвертые – неукоснительное соблюдение положений закона.

Legal consideration of the freedom of the press allows a bridge to be realized by the journalist that professional journalistic activities are carried out in a force field of freedom and responsibility, subject to restrictions and require certain duties. Freedom of the press, legally enshrined in the form of a law, does not abolish, but reinforces responsibility for the written or spoken word.

True, theorists and practitioners of the press are worried that in today's difficult economic conditions, a media employee who has freed himself from the need to intellectually serve certain classes is inclined to replace the former gentleman - the state with a private individual - sponsor.

Particularly important for a journalist are moral values, which include ideas about the dignity of an individual or a group of people, about moral norms, principles, concepts of good and evil, justice, and happiness. On their basis, moral qualities are formed, which are professional for a journalist. From observations of the practice of the media, experts conclude that the development of such qualities as philanthropy, decency, and incorruptibility is especially needed by those who are engaged in investigative activities or work in the field of advertising. This list could also include employees of the entertainment press, which for the time being is focused on sensationalism, inflating facts, and often on explicit mystification. Such a view of the coverage of reality and the style of attitude towards the reader generated by it can lead to a clash of ethical positions of newsmen and the public.

The problem of the “fortress of the soul” of a journalist acquires special relevance at those moments when the usual system of values ​​and attitudes is collapsing, when the mass of the population loses its sense of existence. These processes undermine the ability of a person to identify himself, to define himself in society, to achieve a balance between the social and the individual “I”. But one of the paradoxes of history is that in conditions of crises, social upheavals - all that is connected with the "interruption of gradualness" - a person is able to show the depth of intelligence, and the highest qualities of the soul. This has to do with journalism. True, more and more opinions began to be expressed that the journalistic profession was dying. But we could have heard the same about the ““ death ”of art,“ classical philosophy, science, and morality. The way out to scientists is seen in the "unity of diversity." In terms of sociocultural, it is expressed in the dialogical way of relations “man with man, generation with generation, sex with gender, class with class, nation with nation, region with region, as well as modern times with the past, for saving humanity in this critical phase of its development can only the consciousness of its unity — both social unity and historical ”[27]. The potential of the media in this dialogue is inexhaustible just as the reserves of the human brain are enormous. The very “elusiveness” of the limits of the journalistic profession, the diversity of its types, methods, forms of activity, its involvement in the infinite circulation of information, without which society cannot do, all this makes it possible to talk about the long prospects of its development.