Television as a Cultural and Communicative System: Evolution Directions and Modern Boundaries

Russian science has not yet developed a stable understanding of the essence and generic affiliation of television, which continues to have a powerful multidirectional impact on the cultural and social processes of our time. The proposed characteristic of television as an independent cultural and communicative system allows highlighting its functioning as a separate cultural phenomenon that cannot be reduced to other forms of communicative activity. At the same time, in line with the system-cultural approach, the article substantiates the interaction of the main system-forming factors within the television system: those are artistic-entertaining, economic, informational, political, and technological. Constant consideration of all these factors when examining any aspect of television communication should become the methodological basis for studying television as a system.

A system-diachronic analysis of television, revealing the main directions of its nonlinear development through the mutual influence of the system-forming factors, allowed drawing the following conclusions.

Modern television is increasingly acting not so much as a means, but as a method of communication. This leads to a reduction in the significance of the content of a television utterance and, conversely, to the absolutization of the format, which determines both the content itself and the ritualized processes of television communication.

Significant changes in television communication occurred in the first decades of the 21st century under the influence of Internet technologies: the individualization of television viewing and the spread of “out-of-studio” forms of television production, the improvement of image quality and the democratization of video recording technologies leads to the fact that television ceases to perceive itself as a utilitarian means of broadcasting off-screen reality, and is increasingly positioned as an independent cultural source.

Television in the 21st century has expanded its boundaries, having absorbed the vast sphere of Internet and video communications. The modern television system can be understood as a set of audiovisual messages intended for public display and perceived in non-specialized everyday living conditions.

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