The authors of the article proceed from the fact that in the XXI century the information and communication revolution in the media industry leads to a critical analysis of the journalism development concepts and research techniques in studying this issue. In addition, there was a danger of excessive pressure on the journalism discourse from technological determinism. To resolve the contradiction, authoritative scientists suggest developing an institutional analysis methodology, in particular in relation to the spheres of politics and everyday life. The article considers the grounds for the study of journalism as one of the cultural institutions. For this purpose, cultural studies of journalism are characterized, which is a relevant and promising scientific and disciplinary direction. It still has not gained considerable attention in the global scientific community, although experiments on studying the relationship of journalism with culture are invariably productive and very valuable in theoretical terms. It is noted that the search in this direction is traditionally organic for Russian scientific and pedagogical schools. Cultural studies of journalism can be in line with such successfully developed disciplines as sociology of journalism, psychology of journalism, political science of journalism, ethics of journalism, etc. In academic practice, a variety of methodological solutions included in the complex culture of journalism research will be applied: substantive, functional, relational, praxiological and other approaches, axiological, anthropological, ethno-cultural concepts and methodological algorithms. In this respect, research at theoretical and conceptual level will be supported and tested in empirical projects aimed at collecting data on the interaction of journalism with everyday spiritual practices and the realm of value, as well as the activities of other social institutions of culture and communities.