Educational Potential of New Media

Digitalization of the mass media, which has radically changed the information environment, creates new opportunities for self-education and upgrowth of the audience. The paper defines the communicative and cultural status of new media, characterizes the socio-cultural and technological aspects of their dynamics; substantiates the necessity of elaborating mechanisms for systematization of heterogeneous information flows and elaborating criteria for their evaluation in the era of globalization of the media sphere, what implies a qualitatively different level of media competence of the audience, provided with such factors as media education, media coverage, media criticism. The definition of concepts "media competence", "media enlightenment", "media education", "media criticism" is given and their functional areas are delineated. Social networks are considered as an important tool for media enlightenment which provides significant opportunities for promoting cultural achievements in the new media environment.


Introduction
The Internet demonstrates unlimited possibilities in all spheres of life, offering new communication technologies for different subjects, new technologies for working with information products and new ways of their delivering to target groups, new technologies for forming public opinion and behavioral models.Innovative processes in the field of social communication have led to the emergence of so-called new media information resources based on digital and portal and network technologies with instant response to user's requests.
The qualitative novelty of communicative and social interaction of actors strengthens the role of new media in both information and educational aspects.The problem of new media attracts not only experts in the field of mass and Internet communications, but also humanitarians whose scientific and professional interests concern new information and communication technologies and their impact on people, culture and society (Kazak, 2014;Karpenko, 2013;Polonskiy, 2015;Popov, 2013;Tyazhlov, 2016;Bennato, 2012;Crosbie, 2002;Manovich, 2001;Kireev, 2010;Jenkins, 2006).
The object of research in the paper is new media.The subject of research attention is their educational potential, the ability to disseminate knowledge and culture, influencing the worldview of man and society.The goal of research is to define and specify the opportunities mediated by new media that contribute to raising the level of both media and socio-cultural competence of the audience.
The main research tasks are: determining the communicative and cultural status of new media; understanding the social and technological aspects of their dynamics; formulating characteristics of the basic properties of new media; conducting an analysis of interaction between them and a person; definition of the role of media education, media enlightenment and media criticism in the formulation and solution of problems related to the formation of the communication culture of the audience.

Methodology
Identification of the educational potential of new media which are heterogeneous in their nature involves a multidimensional approach.The key is a descriptive method that provides a holistic view of the subject area, its links to other contexts, and the understanding of the interaction between new media and its audience.We also used a comparison method that made it possible to characterize the functional specificity of new media, the patterns of perception of a media product and to define the content of the terms "media education", "media enlightenment", and "media criticism".The stated methods have determined the theoretical basis of the research.Let us emphasize that the educational potential of new media, which has been noticeably manifested in recent years, has not been studied enough.In addition, the very concept of "media enlightenment" at the moment has not received a complete definition, what involves studying both domestic and foreign theoretical work in the object and topical area under study.

Discussion
A new media is an interdisciplinary phenomenon, a form of communicative interaction between subjects that has not yet received a strict definition and terminology: the terms new media, online media, network media are not differentiated.The development of technologies and the mental dynamics of the audience create a situation where it is difficult to unambiguously define specific media as traditional or as new ones, as they transform, converge, and acquire new, digital formats that blur the boundaries between traditional and new media.The latter can be identified only with the Internet or include the entirety of digital channels for the dissemination of information -the Internet, computer games, digital films, photographs, mobile telephony, the virtual world (D'Amato, 2009).L. Manovich (2001) characterizes new media as analogue and then digitized, with unique accessibility, interactivity and copying ability without loss of quality.Other qualities of new media include responsiveness, openness, interactivity, visuality, laconism, cross-media ability, the ability to generate content and user status of the audience.Thus, G. Jenkins, considering the spaces of intersection between old and new media, shows that the "power" of producers and consumers of information products interacts in unpredictable ways (Prensky, 2006).V. Crosbie (2002) emphasizes the ability of new media to provide information interaction of "many with many" and give the participants of this process the possibility of controlling the content.
Thus, new media are considered in the context of global trends in the development of the modern media environment: the globalization of information dissemination channels; convergent processes in the organizational, trans-media and technological mass media environment; modification of perceptual mechanisms due to the enhancement of information flows; changes in the forms of dissemination of information and criteria of its value; optimization of interaction between mass media and audience, strategies for efficient transmission, search, systematization and information filtering; development of social media and integration with traditional media.
The Internet and the market for new information technologies radically change not only the mechanisms of communication, but also modern man.Witty remark of J.F. Lyotard that "knowledge is what they talk about in quiz shows" (Lyotard, 2013) can be paraphrased as follows: today, knowledge is what is talked about in news feeds of social networks.The multimedia space is filled with myths that provide the audience with stereotypes, values, and models of social structure.Moreover, under the influence of audiovisual media, the globalization of the imaginary occurs, blurring boundaries in the public notions of reality (Reynolds, 2015).People of different nationalities, religions, and ages all over the world play the same online video games, watch the same movies and advertisement videos.
The media environment fundamentally changes the basis of interpersonal interaction.Digital natives, born digital, digital generation are terms which characterize the generation of the digital revolution, for which, according to the remark of the media teacher Mark Prensky, virtual reality and the physical environment are closely intertwined, what worries parents, teachers, and psychologists (Christin, 2014).The interests of the "digital generation" can be regarded by "digital migrants" (in the sense of Prensky -by those "who were not born in the digital world") as information garbage.For example, YouTube offers genres of videos, the value of which is questioned by the older generation.So, in the video genre of "unpacking", the blogger deploys various consumer products in front of the camera.In the genre of "let's play", viewers observe the commented passage of a game by streamers, i.e. bloggers explaining the video game: its plot, graphics, gameplay (the process of interaction between the player and the virtual world).Video hosting YouTube demonstrates the cultural eclecticism of the postmodern era (Ingram, 2014).The British music critic Simon Reynolds sees in YouTube a "new culturological order".In his opinion, YouTube in itself is already a "culture of excerpts and episodes" and looks more like a littered loft resulting from the unsystematic formation of its archive, which is filled and largely controlled by users.The paradox is that the same YouTube which offers ranked lists of similar queries, will come to the aid of a stray user (Tyazhlov, 2015).
In the situation of absence of sustainable aesthetic or ethical criteria, the value of something in new media is measured in terms of quantitative characteristics: likes, ratings, profits, number of subscribers and comments.In the current field of Internet journalism, high-quality materials are replaced by "press journalism" (Fedorov, 2015), entertainment and self-presentation.Analysis of the claimed posts in Facebook shows the highest popularity of publications integrated into the social network and publishing polls, lists and "fake" news (Korochensky, 2010).
A journalist and developer Stein Debrover sees competitors of modern journalism in the abundance of forms of information dissemination, their interchangeability and easy accessibility of choice: "Journalism of this day is not just websites, mobile applications and content.It includes all possible forms of information transfer and its consumption.The classic definition of the work of the journalist ceased to meet modern realities.Crowdsourcing platforms such as Quora and Reddit often provide more exclusive and interesting information than classic media.The competitors of newspapers and magazines are aggregators which collect content from popular social networks and sites" (Korochensky, 2010).
There is also a distinct tendency for the media to "leave" in social networks, where they create public relations, trying to expand the audience.The new trend is the use of a page of a site solely as an entry point into social networks and an advertising business card of the project.A similar example is the Tigermilk project which positions itself as a "new generation of companies" creating, packing and delivering content to social network audiences.Today, almost all the well-known media have their own channels in all existing instant messengers, where media content is optimized for a specific user.For example, "Medusa" offers several different bots in Telegram for different tasks (a bot-cap, a bot with games, a bot structuring the news in a way that is convenient for the user, a bot that broadcasts media messages from the official Twitter channel to Telegram, etc.).
A continuously generated flow of information requires the development of individual mechanisms for its assessment and systematization.The formation of a critical attitude to the mass media is regarded by researchers as an actual task.Alike the modern system of education and enlightenment, journalism which has both logical-conceptual and emotional-imaginative resources, is able to influence on a wide audience.But, in comparison with the education system, journalism is more dynamic.It is able to influence the socialization and re-socialization of people, promptly respond to changes in the social environment including those caused by the progress of mass communications.In today's mediaized society, the potential for mass impact of journalism exceeds the potential of the education system, although journalism is clearly inferior to the latter in the systematic and orderly nature of knowledge.It updates the strategies of the information diet and information hygiene, the culture of information consumption, and its filtration.Globalization of the media sphere requires special mechanisms for the systematization of information arrays and the development of criteria for its evaluation.Media education, media enlightenment, and media criticism (Korochensky, 2010) contribute to the solution of these issues and form media competence being an active rational-critical perception of media content and media forms.
Media competence is a combination of motives, knowledge, and skills that facilitate the selection, use, critical analysis, evaluation, creation and transfer of media texts in various species, forms and genres, and analysis of complex processes of media functioning in society.The development of media competence contributes to effective interaction with the media: "... the audience being at a higher level of media literacy has a higher level of understanding, management and evaluation of the media world" (Korochensky, 2010).
Media education in pedagogy is meant by a special component of school and university "formal" education.Nowadays, there is a broader understanding of media education as an extended long-term social and educational activity.In this interpretation of media education, the emphasis is made on forming of active approaches to media content in an audience, with an emphasis on developing a critical view of the media, on the experience of identifying false information and distortions in the information received, and developing immunity against the manipulative influence of the media.This is facilitated by the audience's familiarity with the mechanisms of mass media functioning, with norms and rules of professional activity of journalists, genres of journalism, etc.
Media enlightenment is understood as a broad and multilevel distribution, and promotion of relevant knowledge in the field of media culture, development of media literacy and intellectual independence, including with the purposeful or spontaneous participation of mass media and based on their material, not involving any formal control procedures.Unlike media education, media enlightenment can both be included in nonformal education, and have the character of informative, casual or non-systematic learning.
Media criticism (journalistic criticism of the media) being an area of modern journalism, has the flexibility and mobility in the formation of a communication culture.It turns into a factor of continuous impact on the audience if critical works are regularly published in specialized publications, their permanent sections and headings, programs on radio and television.The best samples of media criticism combine science and journalism, mobilize cognitive activity of the audience, and critical perception of media content.
The common goals of media criticism and media education allow media critics to organically complement the efforts of educational and enlightenment institutions in the formation of a public culture of rationalcritical analysis and adequate interpretation of media content.And media criticism is not confined to the tasks of "intellectual self-defense" of the public: it involves assessing and correcting the perception of media content, as well as offering a mass audience of alternative information, as it helps to understand the social role and mechanisms of mass media functioning, norms and rules of activity of journalists and other creators of media content that provides a more balanced and critical attitude to the mass media, as well as awareness of the audience in informational rights and interests.
Humanistically oriented media criticism, media education and media enlightenment are interpenetrating spheres with similar goals and objectives, but differing in impact technologies.Journalistic media criticism with its educational and upgrowth potential complements the efforts of media educators who can and should use the results of media criticism to broadcast media education knowledge.Speeches in the mass media put up to the specifics of journalistic activity, editorial policy and other aspects of the functioning of the mass media.So, for example, the Izvestia editorial board repeatedly acquainted readers with the structure of the editorial board, the specifics of the work of the leading journalists of the newspaper, organizing Internet forums for discussions.The resources of civil media criticism combine critical activity with the education of the audience in the field of media.Thus, the portal "Teach right" (www.Whatisgood.ru)offers an analysis of popular media content that helps not only to recognize socially defective and creatively insolvent media products, but also to acquire a cognitive experience of selforientation in information flows.The website www.gazetaogazetah.ru("Newspaper about Newspapers") publishes an analysis of cases of misinformation and media manipulations, what facilitates independent recognition of fakes and media manipulation.
A potentially important tool for media enlightenment providing significant culture promotional opportunities, are social networks.As you know, the launch in 2004 of the Rosetta spacecraft by the European Space Agency to the Churyumov-Gerasimenko comet remained almost unheeded.Today, both Rosetta and the world-famous Philae probe have their own accounts in Twitter (346,000 subscribers from Rosetta and 449,000 from the Philae probe).Subscribers could learn about them, about the course of the expeditions, the "health" of the Philae probe, repost 3-D photos, etc. Source administrators publish information on behalf of those spacecrafts in the infotainment format under different hashtags, what allows filtering "tweets" depending on subscriber preferences.A small animated series about the adventures of Rosetta and Philae was launched in the official YouTube channel of the European Space Agency.
NASA has spent several years promoting its accounts on social networks, what has yielded significant results.When in July 2015, the New Horizons spacecraft flew past Pluto, heading for the boundary of the solar system, the audience could follow the historic event through Twitter, Instagram and Facebook, get acquainted with the HD images of the dwarf planet and its satellite Charon.Proper promotion of the event caused a wave of interest in the study of outer space.This example reflects the significant educational potential of social networks.
An example of the popularization of literature is the translation of one of the chapters of Ulysses by J. Joyce into Twitter format.In 2007, American professor Ian Bagost and product manager of LinkedIn Ian McCarthy have organized a literary presentation of "Twittering Rocks", consonant with the title of the 10th chapter of the novel -"Wandering Rocks", and have registered 54 accounts according to the number of heroes of the novel.The staging consisted in the fact that each hero in accordance with the development of the story published his remark from the book putting its meaning into 140 characters.

Conclusion
The formation of the information culture of the society on the basis of rationally critical attitude to the media is a complex and long-term educational task.However, the interaction of media education, media enlightenment and media criticism can influence not only the attitude of the public to the media, but also the world view of the audience.
Analysis of the possibilities of new media in the aspect of media education, media criticism and media enlightenment represents their educational potential presented in a number of urgent tasks, among them are: a) providing conditions for education and self-education, expanding media outlook; b) development of public discussion, pluralism of opinions; c) decoding of meanings of media texts; d) expert evaluation of media content; e) development of media competence of the audience, its ability to media creativity.It is also promising to use the semiotic approach which views a media text as a sign system and establishes patterns of interpretation of media texts by a segment of the audience.