Integration of regional internet mass-media into social networks: Novosibirsk internet mass-media

The advent of Internet media in the social network is one of the fundamental features of media development at the present stage. These phenomena are described by editors and journalists as «revolution», English uses expressions like «new ecosystem» and «culture of connectivity» to define the phenomenon, in Russian works devoted to the topic it is described in the following way: «changing standards of journalism under new and effective channels of communication». But, in addition to the study of experience of advanced foreign and Russian media, the consideration of the processes going on now in the media system, needs to be complemented not only on federal level but also on the regional one. This article analyses the work of the Novosibirsk public Internet media in social networks such as Facebook and Vkontakte. The author provides statistics and content analysis of these public pages in social networks of such large and popular in Novosibirsk online media as «NGS news», «Taiga.info», «Sibkray» and «Sib.FM», as well as the activity of their audience. As the context to explore the pages and posts the author suggests the percentage of the audience who managed to attract the analyzed sites from social networks, allowing to address the issues of efficiency of those or other identified ways of work. The findings suggest that, despite of the declared need to integrate their activity with social networks, even in such a big city as Novosibirsk, this activity does not attract any significant attention from the media. Two of the media have no communities in Facebook, the rest of the media sources don`t take into account the difference between the two audiences of social networks: news is given at the same time but Facebook provides the reader with less news. Posts are often copied lead, not always followed even by the illustration (other forms of media are extremely rare). For the representative offices of regional media in social networks the following themes are typical: «public life», «urban accidents» and «crime». Such topics as «international relations», «foreign news» evoke very weak interest: regional news agenda is very poorly integrated in this area into the federal one. In general, the practices of public comment and news discussion are not widely spread in social networks. If the number of likes is about 20% of the subscribers of the group, the comments are isolated and their activity does not go to any comparison with comments on the media sites. Thus, it is impossible to describe the integration of regional online media with social networks in terms of «ecosystems» and «hybridization». Social networks in the region represent only a fast announcement of the materials and nothing more. Regional media provide very passive policy of interaction with the audience in social media and do not use the full potential of new opportunities.