“The unexplored nineties”: systematization of sources and conceptual design of the database (a case study of Tomsk and Tomsk Oblast media system of the 1990s)

Abstract

The paper presents the conceptual structure of the factual database “Tomsk media anomaly” covering all the media in Tomsk and the Tomsk Oblast of the 1990s. The authors analyze the state of the research field for understanding the processes of transformation of journalism in the 1990s. A consistent description is given of the stages of conceptual design. The first stage involved planning a system of tasks to be solved using the information resource developed. The second stage was to analyze the subject area and develop its infological scheme by defining the main objects to be described and identifying their relationships within the framework of the subject area. The third stage was focused on generating a data logical schema of the database, representing the structure of the table fields, displaying the attributes of the described objects. The paper explains the structures of the central table and supplementary tables. Also, the examples of how to solve research problems by means of the tables are provided. The authors suggest that the database concept will provide a full-fledged information resource for recording and quantitatively processing the data on Tomsk and Tomsk Oblast media. The development of a database based on conceptual design is part of the general methodology for studying the transformation of Tomsk and the Tomsk Oblast media system.