Cultural meanings of the entertainment industry and consumer preferences among young people

The article substantiates the cultural and historical nature and gaming nature of the entertainment industry phenomenon in the dynamics of its development, as it reveals its dependence on a complex of interrelated system-forming factors, among which consumer preferences among young people occupy an important place. The scientific novelty of the work lies in the disclosure of the thesis that the main forms of the leisure and entertainment industry, cultural dominants and priorities of consumer “taste” preferences in general, having a hybrid nature, are largely determined by the social demands of society for entertainment services. The research reflects the solution of a number of tasks: the definition of the semantic content of the concept, the structure of the entertainment industry in a cultural and historical context, the systematization of its main areas preferred by the Russian youth segment. Theoretical methods were applied: cultural-historical, comparative, analysis and synthesis, aimed at revealing the problem in interdisciplinary discourse. It is concluded that the processes of networkingization of social space transform not only the semantic meanings and contexts of many “classical” concepts of traditional culture, but also the person himself as a carrier of “net-thinking”, influencing the consumer range of entertainment and leisure practices among young people.