Communications management culture in social media as an element of «digital literacy»

Abstract

The article analyzes the phenomenon of the formation of an important element of digital literacy among the digital generation in the space of social media - management of communication modes. The key points of the concepts of the manageability of the relations of J. van Dijk and polymedia M. Madianou and D. Miller, as well as the areas of competence research in the field of «digital literacy» by H. Jenkins, are considered. The author proposes the use of the term of virtual communication culture, integrating in its meaning the concept of «digital literacy» as a set of necessary competencies for network communication. Based on a study of the virtual communication culture of the Tomsk Universities student audience as representatives of the network generation with high digital competence, using the methods of analyzing creative essays on a given topic, indepth interviews and focus groups, such elements of the new network communication culture as the management of communication modes in relation to levels of privacy/publicity, synchronicity/asynchrony, attention and involvement. Conclusions are drawn about expansion of the scope for the gratification of regulation forms of engagement, synchronization, as well as publicity, which occurred as a result of the interpersonal communications transfer to the virtual space of social networks and instant messengers. The prospect for further research in the direction of studying the management of communication modes is seen in identifying latent, but relatively common protocols and regulations of interaction modes and analyzing the variability of communication modes depending on the differentiation of partners by gender, age, social status and other sociographic parameters.