Sociological analysis of television’s functions and impact

The article analyzes the current state of the television’s functions and effects under the social changes caused by the intensive development of information and communication technologies that determines the emergence of a new information society, which is characterized by the transformation of intangible resources, i.e. information, into economic and political resources of society. The system-forming potential of the rapidly developing information and communication sector manifests in the formation of the network structure of social communications, its distribution all over the socio-cultural field, promotion of the horizontal communication model in all spheres of social life, and the growing role of virtuality, interactivity and individualization. The authors conducted sociological analysis of the television’s functions and impact based on the current changes in social structures and classical and modern sociological concepts, and show that the adaptation of the social field of television can be explained by openness of the system, its involvement in social processes of higher order, and its own regulating mechanisms. The television possesses a number of significant features that allow to describe and study it as a social field: a complex communication and production system with specific functions, activities and organizational structure; a system of audio-visual, linguistic and metalinguistic communication; a form of knowledge embodied in the production and accumulation of symbolic material; a complex system of social practices.