International conference "Mass Media and Social Networks: Interaction Opportunities" was held in Saint Petersburg.

Igor Yuzhaninov, Deputy Head of TV and Radio Broadcast and Mass Communications Department of the Federal Agency on Press and Mass Communications opened the conference. Georgy Poltavchenko, the Governor of Saint Petersburg, addressed participants via video. Poltavchenko underlined the relevance of the problems discussed at the conference. He said more and more people, especially the youth, turn to the Internet searching for information rather than to conventional media. Thus social networks are likely to prevail since they provide new opportunities for traditional media.

During the plenary session dedicated to Interaction Opportunities of Conventional and Social Media (host: Sergey Grebennikov, Internet Media Holding CEO) participants discussed the ways of efficient communication with the audience through social media, media convergence and dealing with sources in the changed information space. Journalists and media representatives including Galina Timchenko (Lenta.ru), Alexander Amzin (“Alex and Alex”), Sergey Plugotarenko (RAEC), Valery Levchenko (RIA Novosti), Tina Berezhnaya (Russia Today), Dezhan Erakovich (Tanjug News), Ivan Zassoursky (MSU Journalism Department), Dmitriy Chistov (magazine “Internet v tsyfrakh”) and Alexander Markov (SPb State University of Engeneering and Economics, Professor, PhD in Law) shared their ideas on interaction between the two media platforms.

Which services should be prioritized? Should mass media aggregate and moderate the user-generated content? These and other issues were brought up during the panel discussion called Social Networks and Mass Media: Points of Interaction (host: Pavel Zheltov, Editor-in-Chief of “Delovoy Peterburg”) dedicated to the journalists’ work with social media. Special attention was given to the ways mass media use social media as the platform for their content distribution as well as choosing the appropriate social network and working with user-generated content. Darya Penchilova (RIA Novosti), Aleksey Dementiev (DP.ru), Alexander Amzin and other experts exchanged their opinions.

Participants of Migration of Video Content workshop (host: Michael Orlov, Caramba Media) discussed the ways the Internet is changing the modern television as TV content appears online. Contributors: Michael Ilyichev (CEO Rutube), Sergey Minaev (MinaevLive), Polina Kozlovskaya (“Dozhd”), Dmitry Troitsky (STS Media) etc.

Readers societies, citizen journalism, blogs and their interconnections and journalists conduct on social networks were the issues to be discussed at the Journalism 2.0 and New Approaches to Mass Media Functioning: International Practices workshop (host: Ivan Zassoursky). Participants and contributors discussed the present and the future of the media giving special attention to foreign publishers and news agencies activities. Ivan Zassoursky, Dezhan Erakovich (Tanjug News), Anton Merkurov (Institute for State Ideologies) and Anna Vissens (BBC) contributed to this discussion.

The Present and the Future of Printed Media Workshop (host: Dmitriy Chistov) discussed the imminent death of the printed media awaited by many experts and the prospects for conventional media. Karen Kazaryan (RAEC), Galina Goncharova (Bonnier Publications) and Alexander Amzin shared their opinions.

New platforms for information delivery, mutually beneficial integration of the media and social networks, their interaction and future development of the social media were discussed at the Media Convergence and the Mass Media and Social Networks: Ways of Integration and Interaction workshop (host: Mariya Sirosh, All Mind). Yury Lifshits (Yahoo Research), Galina Pozharina (Begun), Polina Kozlovskaya (“Dozhd”), Galina Timchenko (Lenta.ru) and other media experts participated in the discussion.

Another notable event was the press conference dedicated to DTV Channel rebranding. Changes affected not only the channel logo – it is to be named PERETZ starting from October 1 with its content becoming more “witty and funny”. Dmitry Troitsky, DTV Director General, and Maxim Golopolosov, host of the popular online project “+100500”, presented global changes of the channel and its new content.

More than one thousand participants attended the conference, among them were foreign participants and contributors from the United Kingdom, Serbia, Czech Republic and America. Over two thousand registered users watched the conference online (powered by COMDI, Wi-Fi by Beeline). BBC, RIA Novosti, Delovoy Peterburg, Lenta.ru, Tanjug News and other Russian and foreign media representatives spoke at the conference.

International conference "Mass Media and Social Networks: Interaction Opportunities" is one of those infrequent events with a large number of foreign participants. The conference was organized by Internet Media Holding with financial support by the Federal Agency on Press and Mass Communications. Its key issues are the interaction between mass media and social networks, media convergence, journalism 2.0 and journalists' work with social networks.