Information Activity in the Era of Digital Media as a Factor in Forming Social Senses

Abstract

The purpose of the article is to analyse information activity in the digital media space as a key mechanism for forming social meanings, as well as to comprehend the impact of platform communications, algorithmic content selection and mediatised interaction practices on the transformation of social discourses and communicative reality. The methodological basis of the study is informational and socio-communicative approaches, which make it possible to analyse information activity as a complex socio-cultural process. Systemic and structural-functional analysis is used to identify the role of digital media in the formation of social meanings; discursive analysis is used to comprehend the mechanisms of sense-making in digital communications. Scientific novelty. Information activity is considered as a sociocultural practice of sense-making, which is formed in the interaction of users, digital media and algorithmic mechanisms of platforms. It is substantiated that social meanings in the digital environment arise not only in the process of interpersonal communication, but also as a result of algorithmically structured visibility of information flows. Conclusions. The digital era has transformed information activity into a sociocultural practice of sense-making, within which information ceases to be a neutral resource and acquires meaning only through the processes of interpretation, selection and social interaction. Digital media act as key agents of social sense-making, as they combine users’ communicative practices with algorithmically structured information flows that determine the visibility, priority and contextualisation of content. As a result, information activity takes place in conditions of structured visibility, when meanings are not only produced, but also hierarchised, which directly affects the formation of public perceptions, collective identities, social discourses, personal identity. Therefore, digital media should be considered not as neutral channels of communication, but as active institutional environments integrated into the processes of constructing the social reality of modern society and the corresponding information activity.