AUDIOVISUAL ENVIRONMENT OF THE CITIES OF THE SOUTHERN FEDERAL DISTRICT AS A REPRESENTATION SPACE OF CULTURAL MEANINGS

Abstract

The knowing and rediscovery of the role of culture in the regulation of all areas of public life, which began in the 90-s of the last century, necessitated the study of the meanings that people impart to certain aspects of the world around them. Under the conditions of modern urbanization, the most relevant is the understanding of the meanings and values of culture with which individual elements of the urban environment and the entire urban environment as a whole are associated in the minds of citizens. A comparative analysis of assessments by town dwellers of those elements of the audiovisual environment of the cities of the Southern Federal District, which are projected onto the meaning sphere of culture, has been carried out. The analysis is based on the results of a sociological study of the cities in the Southern Federal District, conducted by the authors in 2018. The assessments of the urban environment by the people who inhabit the city are interesting in so far as we can judge on this base about the emerging culture, about the implicit, but already real meanings, as opposed to the officially supported and proclaimed. There is an imbalance between the various subjects of the Southern Federal District and between the cities within these subjects themselves regarding the positive assessment of their cities by the inhabitants. It has been revealed that the value of a city is determined not only by the aesthetic characteristics of the urban environment, but by those human connections that are established in it due to the fact of birth and long-term residence in it, as well as the opportunities which city provides for work or leisure. In depressed subjects of the Southern Federal District, the audiovisual environment of the city is assessed in a largely negative way. It was recorded that the sound environment of the South-Russian cities is littered with obscene language (with the exception of Kalmykia). At the same time, this profanity does not offend more than a third of the respondents, but is rather habitual (with the exception of residents of Kalmykia and Adygea). Thus, the value of literate literary speech is reduced. The audio component of the urban space of the Southern Federal District is also distinguished by a high level of noise. This study opens up the prospect of a comprehensive study of the influence of the urban environment on the culture of town dwellers.