THE ROLE OF MASS COMMUNICATION IN THE SOCIALIZATION OF PEOPLE WITH DISABILITIES IN UKRAINE

The purposeof the study is to formulate an overall picture of the role of mass communication in the socialization of people with disabilities through social communication project initiatives in Ukraine.The achievement ofthis goal included the fulfillment of the following tasks: analysis of sources on thistopic; questioning and establishing the primary information and communication needs of persons with disabilities as a media audience through an expert survey.Research methods and techniques. During the researchwhen elaborating the sources on the topic there were used the methods of analysis, synthesis, generalization, comparativeanddescriptive methods. The basis of the study is an expert survey. In order to identify the primary information and communication needs of this category of media audience, thesurvey was conducted among social workers who deal with people with disabilities in Dnipropetrovsk, Donetsk, Zaporizhia, Lviv and Khmelnitsky regions. Via online questionnaireservice «Google Forms»there were collected 66responses from January 20, 2020 tillFebruary 3, 2020. The comments which were received earlier or later the survey timelines were disregarded.Results. The results of the survey among social workers whose activities are related to people with disabilities in Dnepropetrovsk, Donetsk, Zaporizhzhya, Lviv and Khmelnitsky regions give grounds to state that for people with disabilities there are promising prospects of constructing an «elastic web» of inclusive social and communication mediaspace in a complex of contact and digital projects, especially initiated and implemented in the media sector. In particular, the experts highlighted the absolute need ofpeople with disabilities to enhance socialization by expanding their daily circle of communication.Conclusions.Within the framework of scientific discourse, the comprehension of this problem is promising in terms of the development of a model of communication relations establishment in moderninclusive poly-platform media space.