RUSSIAN SOCIOLOGY AND MEDIA: RETROSPECTIVE APPROACH

Abstract

The paper is focused on certain aspects of media sociology. The 250-year history of mass media in Russia is a fact well-known to journalism historians but not know in sociological community. The article highlights the key milestones in the development of interactions between mass media and sociologists of the Russian empire, the USSR and the Russian Federation since 1765 up to 2000. The “Grushin model” term is introduced to describe the activities of the sociological units headquartered at major media editorial boards; the model involves a combination of the media audience research coupled with public opinion polls and researchers’ publication activity. This is the model pursued by B. A. Grushin, one of the founders of the Institute of Public Opinion at the Komsomolskaya Pravda Editorial Board in 1960—1967, who conducted regular public opinion polls and published their results in the Komsomolskaya Pravda newspaper and scientific journals. A number of undisclosed facts about the sociological activities of three Russian TV and radio stations in 1990s, including the first Russian exit poll conducted by the VGTRK Company during the 1993 State Duma elections, are presented in the paper.