Strategic role of media education in the conditions of development of information economy

Abstract

The purpose of this article is to determine the role of media education in the conditions of development of information economy and to determine the perspective methods of its development in the interests of leveling its systemic failures. The work uses the method of regression and correlation analysis. The authors study dependence of the index of development of information & communication technologies on indices that reflect the level and effectiveness of media education, which are independent variables: Index of knowledge economy, Index of higher education, Index of technological development, and Index of innovative activity. The information & analytical basis of the research consists of materials of reports of the International Telecommunication Union, the World Bank, and the World Economic Forum for 2009-2016. The object of the research is modern Russia. In the course of the research, the authors determine systemic failures (gaps) of the information economy in modern Russia, offer practical recommendations for leveling these systemic failures, and distinguish the functions of media education in this process. As a result, a conclusion is made that media education plays a decisive, strategic role in the process of informatization of society and creation of information economy. As any socio-economic system, information economy is characterized by periodic appearance of new failures. Media education allows overcoming the initial barriers on the path of informatization of society and stimulates the leveling of systemic failures that appear in the formed information economy