THE CONTEMPORARY MASS MEDIA EDUCATION IN RUSSIA

In my opinion the above mentioned aims can be achieved within the framework of “traditional” media education. But it’s good that pedagogical ideas are not standing still, trying to find new perspectives in the seemingly well-studied processes…
One way or another, the problems of media culture and media education attract representatives of different sciences today. The reason is not only that “media culture is the dominant culture of the information society which way of existence is the activity of traditional and electronic media which recreate social and cultural picture of the world with the help of verbal, symbolic and visual images; the culture- universe which incorporates the functional diversity of mass, popular, elite cultures and their modifications, ontologically rooted in human activity; the culture-metamessage about the outlook of mankind” (Vozchikov, 2007, pp.61-62). But also in the intersubject and boundary character of media education which incorporated a wide range of ideas of pedagogics, psychology, philosophy, sociology, philology, political science, art history and other sciences.  . Media Education and the World’s Public Interest
For more than ten years media education is a compulsory component of education of all pupils in Canada and Australia from 1st to 12th forms. Similar programs of school media education have been adopted recently in Hungary, the Czech Republic and Slovakia.  
Media education today is at the peak of the world’s public interest. Not for nothing the recently adopted European Parliament Resolution: 
–    “maintains that media education should be an element of formal education to which all children should have access and which should form part and parcel of the curriculum at every stage of schooling;
–    calls for media literacy to be made the ninth key competence in the European reference framework for lifelong learning set out in Recommendation 2006/962/EC;
–    calls on the Commission, when, as announced, it lays down the media literacy indicators, to take into account both the quality of school tuition and teacher training in this field;
–    notes that, in addition to educational and education-policy considerations, technical equipment and access to new technologies are also of vital importance, and maintains that school facilities need to be substantially improved so as to enable all schoolchildren to have access to computers, the Internet, and the necessary instruction” (European Parliament Resolution, 2008).
In the ideal it would be very helpful if the resolution of the European Parliament received a positive comment in the Russian Parliament, in the structures of the Ministry of Education and Science of the Russian Federation. And nowadays it seemingly has a good basis. In 2002 the Ministry of Education and Science of the Russian Federation officially approved university specialization 03.13.30 “Media Education” (the first specialists graduated in Taganrog State Pedagogical Institute in 2007). In May, 2009 the Moscow Municipal Duma (at the suggestion of the dean of the faculty of journalism of MSU E.L. Vartanova) recommended to introduce media education in the capital schools. In the spring of 2009 Russian Minister of Communications and Mass Media I. Schegolev expressed support for mass media education…
Finally, “the increased use of information and communication technologies  for the development of new forms and methods of education including remote education and media education” is named among the priority directions of the development of information and communication technologies in the long-term perspective, “the Conception of long-term social and economical development of the Russian Federation until 2020” (approved by the Government of the Russian Federation, November 17, 2008).
Problem Areas in the Development of Mass Media Education
However, in relation to the Russian situation I.A. Fateeva (Fateeva, 2007, pp.144-145) notes the following problem areas in the development of mass media education:
–    backwardness of mass media education in institutions of formal media education (secondary and vocational);
–    lack of development of media education programs “for adults”;
–    lack of attention to the problem of specialists training for different types of media education;
–    extreme isolation of different levels of education and different thematic educational programs which doesn’t meet modern requirements of openness and flexibility of education;
–    lack of development of programs of additional journalistic education;
–    lack of adequate diversity of programs because of the weakness of partnership between the educational sphere, media business and other interested parties;
–    the complete absence of organized forms of mass media education in institutions of continuing education (in leisure and educational centers, offices of the society “Znanie”, institutions for middleaged people, etc.) (however, this statement of I.A. Fateeva is quite debatable because namely in Russian leisure centers/cultural centers/clubs the practical branch of media education has been successfully developing for more than 80 years as photo/film/video circles, discussion film/video clubs – A.F.).
I can probably add the following difficulties in the development of media education: 
–    inactivity of the officials in institutes of higher education who don’t hurry make concrete moves for introduction of media educational courses (while the potential for this is considerable, both in the spectrum of disciplines of regional component approved by the institutes themselves, and optional disciplines);
–    traditional approaches of the structures of the Ministry of Education and Science which are focused on the support of the courses on information science and informational technology in education while the urgent problems of media education receive much lesser attention. Conclusions
The successes of Russian theory and methodology of media education are much more noticeable: more than 100 monographs and textbooks, dozens of educational programs for schools and universities, and more than 1000 articles on the subject were published in the past 10-15 years. A specialized magazine “Media Education” is regularly issued since 2005. More than 70 theses on media education, media competence and media literacy have been successfully defended from 2000 till 2010, including 8 doctoral theses (see: Fedorov, 2009, pp.53-117). Russian media educators have received grants (including the Federal target program) of the Ministry of Education and Science of the Russian Federation (1999-2012), Russian Humanitarian Scientific Foundation (1999-2012), Russian Foundation for Fundamental Research (2002-2004), President’s Programme “Support for Leading Scientific School of Russia” (2003-2005), UNESCO, the number of foreign foundations (“Open Society Institute”, MION – Ino-center, Fulbright, IREX, DAAD, etc.). More than 40 research grants have been received for the last 10 years.
Unfortunately, media education in Russia in general has still not moved from the experiment to the wide practical implementation. It is necessary to consolidate pedagogical institutions of higher education, universities, faculties of journalism,  experimenters in media education and also the media community, coordination of the interaction of state structures, the existing media educational centers and experimental sites in this sphere.
References
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(2008/2129(INI))http://www.europarl.europa.eu/sides/getDoc.do?pubRef=-
//EP//TEXT+TA+P6-TA-2008-0598+0+DOC+XML+V0//EN 
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Aknowledgment
This article was written with the support of the special Federal program “Scientific and pedagogical manpower of innovation Russia” (2009-2013) within the bounds of activity “The conduction of scientific research by the teams of Scientific-Education Centers in the fields of psychology and education”, project “ The analysis of the effectiveness of the Russian Media Education Centers in comparison with the leading foreign centers”. Head of the project is Prof. Dr. Alexander Fedorov.
 
Author
Alexander Fedorov,  Taganrog State Pedagogical Institute, Taganrog (Russia) and Russian
Association for Media Education, e-mail: [email protected]