In the review presented to your attention, we will focus on the digest. What it is? In the age of development of the Internet and information technology, many areas of activity are moving to an automated level. The media space is no exception. Nowadays, there are many Internet observers who hourly release news pieces about an event. This means sites with political, sports, social, economic and other news. If you consider all these resources under the prism of the “foundations of the media”, then all of them are united by such a concept as a digest. What is it? Let's figure it out!
Digest - what is it? Definition and features
In the literal translation from English, “digest” is a summary (digest) or a summary (the word digerere is translated from English as “split”). In Russian, the word "digest" is most often found in the media. This concept implies some kind of information product (selection, article or publication), which contains brief annotations to the topic under discussion. In the digest, as a rule, the main provisions of the articles are collected, in which the most interesting and relevant publications are presented in short form (for a certain period of time). The popularity of this format is due to the fact that concise information allows you to get acquainted with popular news, a separate topic or the whole study as soon as possible.
Digest - what is it? Format Value and Application
In the generalized concept, “digest” is an anthology of excerpts (quotes, epigraphs, etc.) taken from several information sources. The output is a compressed form of a particular genre, topic or summary. Following the example of this format, the online publication “Litera.ru” works, which places brief news information from the magazine “Russian Language Abroad”. And the ChemPort chemical portal has an “organic digest,” which is based on the “Science News” section. In general, in the word "digest" they put the concept of reprints of other people's materials in an abridged systematized form. There are over a hundred examples of popular online publishers that work on this principle. The Readers Digest, a well-known American magazine, which contains the most relevant political and news events over the past month, is among these.
Format History
The principle of writing concise thematic collections has been known since ancient times. The most noteworthy example is Digest, a brief summary and excerpts from the writings of ancient Roman lawyers, which constituted the main provisions of Byzantine law. Later, "Digest" was renamed the "Code of Civil Law."
Ancient Slavic Digests
So the digest. What is it and where did it come from? In the history of ancient Slavic peoples there is also a place for the concept we are considering. The famous book "Zlatostruy" (written in Ancient Bulgaria) was created on the basis of a collection of concise statements. It contains all the moral teachings and creations of John Chrysostom (in the expanded version, there are about 136 scriptures).
“Svyatoslav's Compendium” is the third oldest (after the “Ostromir Gospel” and “Novgorod Codex”) Old Russian manuscript book, which presents the works of the church fathers in a short and comprehensive form. In ancient times, this principle of compiling books was widespread and popular. The book "Catechism" belongs to the same category, which contains the basics of Christian dogma (the book is written in the format of a question-answer, which also falls under the concept of "digest").
Based on these connotations, we can conclude that the modern media information platform (books, media, news portals, etc.) adopts most of the principles and formats from antiquity. Then there was no such thing as a digest. This wording got its name in the modern world. Previously, collections of brief information and writings were called “extract”, “note”, “extracts” and so on.
Digests in Russia
And what is a digest through the eyes of a Russian person? What is it and how was it used in Russia? The first digest formats in Russia appeared in the 17th century. However, even then there was no such word. All publications, magazines and collections, which worked on the principle of information compression, were called "chimes". Now the word "chimes" is used as a historical term to refer to Russian-language reviews of the European press in the late 17th and early 18th centuries. Later, in the mid-18th century, the word "extract" began to be used. The Collegium of Foreign Affairs began to do this first. The definition of the extract meant not only reviews of the European press, but also concise thematic statements of other documents (in print or in manuscript form).
Where are digests used now?
And if we talk about modern Russia and the concept of "digest"? What is this in the current sense? In the vocabulary of the Russian-speaking population, the word "digest" appeared at the end of the 20th century. The organization "National Corpus of the Russian Language" first registered this term in 1993. However, this word was already used in the 80s. In the early 2000s, the concept of “digest” became incredibly fashionable, which is why it is very often used in various fields. Because of this, the meaning of the word is not fully formed. An ever new meaning is constantly being put into this concept. For example, the “Digest of reviews” is an already well-established concept on the popular video hosting “YouTube”.
As mentioned above, many popular news portals work on the principle of reprinting information from other sources in a short form. However, the spread of "digests" does not end there. This principle has long been applied in television programs, series, films and cartoons, etc. For example, on the Russian television talk show "Let them talk" on Channel One very often use digests. Before the studio starts discussing anything, you will first be presented with a video clip on the topic of the program. Thus, you quickly understand the essence of the topic under discussion and continue to watch the program from the middle. Similar video inserts (i.e. digests) are shown after advertising. Some TV shows insert a digest before a commercial break. This is done in order to interest and keep the viewer after the advertisement (because most often when the advertisement starts, the viewer switches to another channel). The most notable example is the Comedy Club digest. The audience can access the best fragments from a humorous show in seconds.