Audience characteristics of the specialized press (on the example of the newspaper «Yurydychna Praktyka», Kyiv, 1995-)

Abstract

Introduction. The specialized press operating in the media market of Ukraine is represented by many publications in which the target audience is interested. In addition to business, medical, literary and artistic, and other magazines, the system of specialized press in Ukraine also includes legal publications. Researching the audience of the legal press is useful for many reasons, in particular, to know whom to direct communication to (who is the consumer of information), whose interests to take into account, what topics to choose, how to design the publication, etc.
The purpose of the study is to examine, on the basis of the analysis of the achievements of Ukrainian and foreign scholars and practitioners in the media sphere, the audience features of the specialized publication «Yurydychna Praktyka» and to form a portrait of its readership. To achieve the purpose of the study, general scientific and special methods were used, in particular: historical – to study the state of media audience research; comparative – to identify trends in the formation of the audience of a specialized newspaper based on the collected data; inductive – to summarize the identified trends and formulate conclusions; typologization – to differentiate information according to the elements of the structure of specialized publications. In solving certain research tasks at different stages of the study, empirical and theoretical methods were used: observation, description, classification and systematization.
Results. In the context of our study, special attention should be paid to the opinion of researchers Ohmichen E. and Reeder K.-M., who believe that, according to the criterion of motives, all users (the audience of the publication) are divided into those who are focused on information of a certain type and those who are looking for entertainment, and that a person’s belonging to one or another type of user is influenced primarily by social status and the requirements of the profession. The audience of the legal publication mainly consists of persons who are citizens of Ukraine, have a higher legal education, speak the state language fluently or to the extent that corresponds to the level determined by the National Commission on State Language Standards, have experience in the field of law or in certain legal positions.
Conclusions. To summarize, the media audience is the real consumers of the media product created by different types of editorial offices. If in the past the audience was the object to which the media message was directed, today, due to high competition in the market, the audience influences the topics and issues of the editorial content, i.e., once an external factor of a journalist’s creativity has become his or her customer for a certain type of information.