The mass media play a special role in modern Russia, carrying out communications between the authorities and society. In recent years the market of the press and television has started to develop at the regional and municipal level. This is a general tendency of development of information sources. The majority of citizens are using the regional mass media for obtaining information on economy, policy and culture. Regional and local authorities use the great opportunities of mass media mainly for creation of their own image. The content of regional and municipal media sources is of great interest for comparative analysis. We selected the following print and electronic media of the Vologda Oblast: newspapers “Krasnyy Sever” and “Rech’”, news lines “Russkiy Sever”, “Novosti Vologdy” and “Novosti Cherepovtsa”. The analysis of the news consisted in the distribution of their content into 11 groups. After the processing of the results, we made the rating of the main directions among the publications in regional and local mass media. The characteristic of the attitude of the Vologda Oblast residents to various mass media and their role in modern society is given in the article. It is based on the results of the surveys carried out by the Institute of Socio-Economic Development of Territories of RAS. The final part of the work provides recommendations for enhancing the efficiency of implementing the main functions of the regional and local media
Keywords
state, society, mass media, regional mass media, internet, news, content analysis