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Замысел и практики экспертизы в российской системе возрастной классификации медиаконтента
The article deals with experts’ contribution to the Russian Age Rating System. It aims to understand the real functions of this new type of experts’ work created in 2012: Does it provide conflict resolution in this system, work as a barrier for unwelcome content, or help to appropriate implementation of the law on the media safety of children? For this purpose, the author analyzed the institutional design of this experts’ work and its place in the system of children’s information security, drew the generalized portrait of experts and expert organizations, and studied
the practices of initiating examinations, as well as interactions between experts and their clients. The research is based on biographical and other data from the registers of accredited experts and expert organizations, the results of
all expert examinations from the start of the system to the end of 2021, laws and regulations, and semi-structured interviews with experts themselves. The author found that experts’ work, which had been introduced into the Russian
Age Rating System as a means of resolving disputes and doubts or as independent arbitration, never formed a significant institution for almost ten years of its existence. The contradictions of design due to optionality, the market method to engage experts, and the weak regulation of procedures cause its weakness. The rules of experts’ activity arise spontaneously, they are implicit and local, and the expert body’s composition is heterogeneous. However, the design problems have a dual impact. On the one hand, they do not contribute to the development of expert activity and do not ensure demand for it. On the other hand, they create opportunities for modeling the results of expert examinations
in accordance with clients’ interests through the selection of a suitable expert and informal communications prior to the conclusion of the contract with an expert, and it is not necessarily corruption. So, expert knowledge is used very selectively. Demand for it does not correlate with the proportions of classification’s violations in different media. Rather, it reflects the activity of individuals among stakeholders who pay attention to this expert institution for ideological reasons or considerations of a moment.