Content analysis of normative legal acts determining the state cultural policy of the Volga Federal District

A widely used method for studying semi-structured problems is content analysis. Content analysis can be characterized as a substantive analysis of the information space, the subject of which is the analysis of the content of an array of texts and communicative products. In Russian research practice, content analysis is interpreted through the quantitative analysis of documents and text arrays and a further explanation of the identified patterns. At its core, content analysis involves reformatting information from verbal to non-verbal, which significantly increases its objectivity, and also allows to move into the plane of intellectual social reality. The article presents conclusions based on the results of a content analysis of legal acts that determine the state cultural policy in the regions of the Volga Federal District. The Volga Federal District territorially occupies 6.1 % of Russia, being one of the most populated. The location of the district at the intersection of the international transport corridors "North-South" and "East-West", connecting Siberia and the Far East, as well as the countries of East Asia with European Russia and the states of Europe, makes its transit position unique. Another feature of the Volga region is a significant production potential. The concentration of innovation-active enterprises here is up to a third in comparison with the all- Russian indicator and about half of the total volume of Russian technology exports. In the course of a content analysis, the meanings of the concepts on which the authors of the laws are focused, and the meanings disclosed in the text, are clarified. The correlation of the results obtained during the comparison, as well as the statistics of the words surrounding the concept of "culture" and its derivatives, made it possible to formulate conclusions regarding the understanding of culture by the legislator.