Abstract

Background. Our understanding of the world is largely based on the image of the native state, i.e. 'a small homeland' that shapes the development of a person, and identifies their social identity. The development of the information society provides more and more powerful tools for the media to influence the recipient's view of the world and representations of the human society as a whole. A man has to get all the information about the territory of the rest of their country, except for'the small homeland', via the media content. This content is cropped up with stereotypes and leads to the disintegration of society. Therefore, it is important to study the features of such media influence, their strength and validity.

Objective is to study regional images of Russia among young people from different Russian regions, and to identify the media role in shaping of regional images and image of Russia as a whole.

Design. This pilot research has a limited sample. 30 recipients (Mage=22.6 years, SD=2.78; 11 males from 15 regions of Russia) took part in this research.

The methods included a survey and a series of detailed interviews, psycho-semantic scaling and projective methods. The psycho-semantic research assumed description of the following regional images: the North of Russia, Central Russia, the South of Russia, the Northern Caucasus, the Volga region, the Urals, Siberia, the Far East.

Results. It is shown statistically that participants of the research tend to evaluate their personal views differently from those that, they believe, are shaped through the media. The images generated by the media are rather positive and point mainly to the advantages of territories, not to mention their possible disadvantages. The majority of respondents have very little personal experience of interacting with Russian regions. Their understanding of regions mainly correspond to the regional images shaped through the media. Moreover, these images are stereotypes and highlight the emotional side. A categorical structure of the perception significantly differs in factor content from the structures shown in the study results of an integral image of Russia and separate states (Matveeva, 2010; Mitina, Petrenko, 2009). It has its own specific features and is not reduced in the aggregate to the overall image of Russia.

Conclusion. When building regional images and the overall image of Russia, the respondents focus on the moral evaluation which helps to construct their personal image, and then they go on with the representations shaped through the media. These image of Russian region differ from the overall image of Russia. The paper represents the results of a pilot study, therefore, the results can hardly be extrapolated to a wider sample, but they can be considered in further research.