Strategies of Students’ Information Behavior in the Transformation of Media Space

Introduction. Currently, media inclusion is a regular process. It takes place in order to realize the need for information interchange, communication, recreation and entertainment. The personality constantly interacts with the subjects and objects of the media landscape. The relevance of the analysis of students’ behavioural reactions to changes in the media landscape is due to the work suspension of social networks popular among young people and high human absorption in the media space.

Purpose. Identification of the students’ adaptive qualities, their strategies of self-determination and self-presentation. Materials and Methods. The methodological tools were: The Socio-Psychological Adaptation Test adapted by Osnitskiy, the Strategic Approach to Coping Scale (SACS) adapted by Vodopyanova, and the author’s questionnaire designed to establish the nature of interaction with media content and attitude to changing conditions access to it. The study involved 176 students of various courses of study at the university, aged 17–21 and older.

Results. The data on the students’ emotional and sensual responses to changes in their habitual daily involvement in social networks is presented. It is reflected that undergraduate students have conflicting feelings about the introduction of restrictions on access to media resources. At the same time, they have a more negative attitude to the changes taking place compared with senior courses. It was revealed that most respondents, regardless of age, tend to bypass the imposed blocking of media content.

Discussion and Conclusion. The relationship between adaptive manifestations of personality and willingness to change the current system of daily media consumption in connection with changes is reflected. The capabilities of analyzing students’ media behaviour are presented.

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