The article is devoted to the problem of involving children of preschool and primary school
age in the sphere of media education. How does the consumption of media content affect the
formation of a reading culture and the related interest of 7-12 year old children in knowledge? This
aspect, in our opinion, requires careful study and reflection. In the existing studies of media
preferences of the new audience, as a rule, the focus is on the age segment from 12 to 20 years and
older. The peculiarities of content consumption by younger children remain practically unexplored,
while practice shows that “immersion” in the media environment and contact with gadgets in a
child begins much earlier – even at an unconscious age, that is, from one and a half years.
Particular attention in this article is paid to such a resource of media education as children's
magazines that offer new, entertaining, popular science content and a special digital reading
model. This article presents the results of a study whose purpose was to determine the key
characteristics of the functioning of popular science magazines for children in the digital
environment, taking into account the changed practices of media education and media
consumption.