The article considers conceptual approaches to community media studies. According to the authors, the dominant society centered and media centered approaches need to be clarified and in some cases revised. On the material of ethnic communities’ digital media, the conclusion was done that the community centered approach may be relevant in this case, and such an approach deserves special development in research. For empirical study, digital media of Russian-speaking communities were taken, 3 from Finland and 3 from Lebanon.