Communication Features of the Secondary Social Network of Small Social Groups (on the Example of Families with Adopted Children)

Abstract

The purpose of the article. In our article, we need to determine how family caregivers see their communication mission, how the family communication system changes due to the fact that the family began to function in the latest family communication, and what changes may occur in the family communication network during its existence in new condition.

Methodology. The methodological basis of the article is general scientific methods: a synergistic approach to determining the role and place of secondary social networks in the communication of small social networks; application of the analytical-synthetic method for processing the scientific source base of research; the analytical method was used to reveal the peculiarities of presenting the contents of small social groups.

Result. Thus, the central research questions of the article are as follows: 1. How do family caregivers experience their current communication function? 2. How does the communication function of caregivers change as a result of family caregiving? 3. What communication support does the communication network offer family caregivers and what is missing? The purpose of the article is to typify the approaches of family caregivers to their new communication needs in supporting adopted children, which arises when the family begins to function as a small social group in the latest family care, with the aim of generalizing those mass communication techniques that are used in the practice of the local classroom society.

As a result of the study, it was found that the secondary social network needs the support of all its participants in the form of a comprehensive method of transmitting such content, which in the initial latent period of the newest composition of the network will be minimally deviant and maximally understandable to all participants. The secondary social network should be flexible and shaped according to the uniqueness of each network member, taking into account their individual needs. Formal and informal support of new members of the network, who have become these members against their own will, should complement each other through the establishment of a certain content threshold. This content threshold should be emotionally and informationally low so that each member of the secondary social network can make changes whenever the social situation in the group changes.

Novelty. The novelty of our research interest in the study of communication features of small social groups on the example of communication within families with adopted children is based on several arguments. First, in our previous studies, a number of features of the general communication interests of the children and youth audience were analyzed; at the same time, the main emphasis is placed on the socio-communication characteristics of these interests (convergent features of children’s media, social networks as a platform of interests on the part of children and youth audiences, problems of media education, etc.). But at the same time, the personal communication interests of children and young people remained outside our attention, which – according to the Ukrainian researcher H. Pyrog – makes any research limited and insufficiently substantiated [8]. Secondly, in the Ukrainian segment of social communications, this problem has not been studied at all. The study of what constitutes family communication is limited to psychological or pedagogical frameworks and is extremely rarely conducted in the context of social communications, which narrows the basic plane of such scientific investigations.

The practical meaning. The results of the research can be used by teachers and practitioners in the field of mass communication. The article will also be useful for working with journalism students