Formation of Psychological Media Competence of Specialists in the Field of Advertising and Public Relations

The importance of media competence research is connected with the totality of media communications; its psychological component is necessary for a person to understand the peculiarities of media influence and is, at the same time, poorly studied. For specialists in the field of advertising and public relations, psychological media competence (PMC) is of particular importance, since their activities involve the creation of an attractive product for the audience, while not violating the psychological safety of consumers. This determines the relevance of the presented research, the task of which was to analyze the components of psychological media competence among students. The study was conducted using the semantic differential (SD) method and a questionnaire methodology compiled by the author, which allows assessing the ability of a person to determine the psychological characteristics of media texts. Factor analysis, nonparametric Mann-Whitney and Kraskal-Wallis criteria were used for processing. The program developed by the author and tested in the course of the formative experiment is presented, it is aimed at increasing students’ PMC as of future specialists in the field of advertising and PR. 110 people participated in the study. A low level of students’ PMC was revealed. According to the analysis of the results of the experiment, a judgment on the effectiveness of the experimental program aimed at the development of psychological media competence, in particular, the skills of psychological analysis of media texts, is substantiated.