State media contests as a form of promoting patriotic values

This paper considers Russian state policy and the actions of the media in the formation and promotion of patriotic values. Media contests are highlighted as a key form of implementing such values. The contests are understood as the voluntary and mass involvement of journalists in the cause of patriotic education. The media in general, and media contests in particular, in federal programs of patriotic education adopted in 2001-2024 and the practice of holding contests by state, public, and commercial organizations are analyzed. The paper describes a consistently formed national model of such contests, which reached the peak of their popularity in 2020, including the federal and interregional media contests “Patriot of Russia”, “Glory of Russia”, “My Small Homeland”, “Challenge of the 21st Century”. Guidelines for the further development of the media as conduit of patriotic education were presented at the conference “The contribution of the media to the implementation of the state program of patriotic education of Russian citizens”. The conference adopted a “Memorandum on Patriotism”, which functions as an information standard - an ethical guide for the compilation and evaluation of media texts. Since 2020, patriotic policy, its media components, and media contests have largely moved from federal strategies to federal departmental programs. The number of federal-scale media contests has significantly decreased. This situation requires correction with a return to the experience and models of the previous period discussed in the article.