| Abstract [eng] |
Society of Lithuania from classic sociological perspective is still on the social change. There is no strong middle class, like in the old democracy states, the power holders are constantly in change, and economy is also in transition. As a result, the structure of society is unstable; therefore it is hard to identify members of one group or the other. In this work, according to elite theory, society is divided in two groups: mass and elite. The mass consists of a huge number of people, however not as powerful as another one. The elite is a small group of people, which is more privileged, has a stronger influence in public life, better welfare, more capital, and more freedom. This group is in the top position of society and it takes the main decisions in the state. Hence, one of the objects of this work is the media audiences as society groups – mass and elite. Another one is the mass media and elite media. The purpose of this work is to examine the working of mass and elite media. The task to reach that purpose are these: (1) explore the structure of society which is consistent of two groups – mass and elite; (2) to establish the position of the media in mass-elite relation and communication; (3) to analyze mass media and its relation to mass audience; (4) to analyze elite media and its role in society. In the empirical part of the work the exploratory investigation is made. The aim of the investigation is to settle the tendencies of mass and elite media usage. The object of investigation is TV (4 biggest Lithuania TV channels) viewing. The method of investigation is the TV rating analysis, which has to confirm or deny the two hypotheses: firstly, both the mass and the elite audience are using TV for self-amusing. Secondly, the priorities of audiences differ in genres and in programmes. The first of hypothesis is proven, as mass media uses mostly genres of entertainment, reality show and elite media is attracted mostly to sport. However as we can see the information programmes sometimes also have high rating for mass audience. So, the assumption can be made, that mass audience uses TV for many purposes as TV is the main media for it. The second hypothesis was neither confirmed, nor denied. The reasons of that could be found in the bigger audience fragmentation, because the enhanced number of media channels. And this fragmentation of course starts from those who have possibilities to reach these channels – elite audience. |
