Media Culture as the Information Age Phenomenon

The article raises the issues of scientific reception of such a phenomenon as media culture. The authors offer their interpretation of media culture as a special type of culture of the information society in the broadest understanding of this phenomenon. The authors consider the concepts of “media” and “culture” and establishes their functional corresponddence. The contemporary stage of media development is characterized by a combination of communication and information intentions: classical media and mass communication media, including new media, blogs, social networks, as well as digital copies of non-network artifacts and their network modifications. The result of these media communications is a media text in the broadest interpretation of this concept. According to the authors’ concept, contemporary media culture realizes itself in two main aspects. In the applied sense, a media culture is a form of representation and digitalization of classical and network cultural units. In the global sense, media culture is understood as an aesthetic and axiological sphere of society’s life, in which culture combines the value and artistic heritage, using the information and communication channels of the media for its representation in politics, education, and culture itself.