The influence of the media and the Internet on the formation of the attitude of Russians to their health: a sociological analysis

BACKGROUND: An insufficiently high level of public health has a negative impact on social, economic, and political processes in the country and the social structure of Russian society as a whole. Social media institutions (traditional media: television, periodicals, radio) and the Internet are important sources of forming attitudes to health today. The main mass media are television, radio, and periodicals. Currently, the issue of classifying the Internet as a media outlet is being raised, but it has not been definitively resolved.

AIM: The aim is to identify the specifics and significance of the influence of the Internet and traditional media (television, radio, periodicals) on the formation of Russians' value attitude toward their health.

METHODS: The basis was the sources of relevant information: 1) 5 800 web-sites; 2) scientific publications (n=68) of the Russian Science Citation Index, Scopus, Pubmed databases. The sociological method of traditional internal analysis of scientific documents was used to study the empirical material.

RESULTS: In recent years, scientists, both here and abroad, with the help of sociological research, have been trying to find out which sources are most popular among different socio-demographic groups of the population when receiving information. It turned out that for the Russian population as a whole, the most priority source for obtaining general information is television, and the main source of information on the topic of health for Russians is the Internet. The largest number of health websites in the Russian Internet space today is devoted to the topics of cardiovascular, oncological, gastrointestinal, neurological diseases, colds, and influenza. The article analyses in detail the participation of traditional media in the process of forming a caring attitude toward their well-being among Russians. In particular, it is shown that medical issues are currently quite widely represented on television and in print media, and radio is poorly involved in this process. Attention is also paid to the fact that the Internet and domestic mass media can have both positive and negative effects on the dissemination of health information.

CONCLUSION: One of the main conclusions of the article is that the Internet is the most preferred source of health information for Russians today, especially for young people.