Media Aesthetics As A University Educational Component

Introduction. The article deals with the university discipline “Media Aesthetics”, reveals the problem of forming and improving students’ ideas about the general laws of aesthetic activity and aesthetic development of the world, and substantiates the need to outline the specifics of the social nature of beauty, art as a mechanism of human socialization, aesthetic information as an integral part of the mass media. Relevance and purpose. The study of media aesthetics at the university is relevant because of the need to analyze the aesthetic aspects of media materials, especially in wartime. Media aesthetics is closely related to the concepts of cultural and social values and harmony. The development of social media and artificial intelligence should support the human factor, in which aesthetics plays an important role. The purpose of this study is to highlight the importance of media aesthetics for the development of critical thinking, understanding of aesthetic principles, and professional activity in the field of social communications. Media aesthetics develops creativity, adaptability, flexibility of thinking and artistic taste of students. Methodology. The research methods used were the analysis of scientific and methodological material on aesthetics and journalism, generalization of teaching experience, and interpretation of the research results. Results. The article analyzes the peculiarities of teaching the discipline “Media Aesthetics”, in particular, the thematic content, the approximation of aesthetic theories to the latest modern media technologies. The question of the formation of students’ ideas about the laws and categories of aesthetics, which is fundamental for world perception and communication with the world, is revealed. The study substantiates the importance of the educational component for the formation of skills to understand the specific nature of beauty, culture and art in the process of human socialization. It is about aesthetic information as an integral part of the media space. Conclusions. The tasks set out in the article are realised: media aesthetics as an educational component is considered; the problem of the level of development of media aesthetics in the information space as a projection of basic training of media professionals is revealed; the need to improve journalistic skills in terms of the specifics of aesthetic information is substantiated. It is substantiated that the educational component ‘Media Aesthetics’ within the educational process helps to form and develop the flexibility of thinking, creative abilities of future media professionals based on aesthetic categories, encourages self-realisation of specialists, activates cognitive interests in combination with the formed aesthetic tastes, ethical level of development, and implements heuristic abilities as crucial for the formation of professional skills and competitiveness of a modern media specialist.