Sociologičeskie issledovaniâ

The article deals with the concept of the world's disenchantment by M. Weber as a methodological basis for understanding modern transformations of consciousness, first of all, the deviation from the scientific picture of the world and the restoration of the magical worldview. It is shown that M. Weber considered the process of disenchanting the world in two forms: as marginalization of magical salvation practices within rationalized religious worldviews and as the assertion of ideas about the full cognizability of the world in the scientific worldview. The factor of the world's disenchantment is rationalization, as a result of which archaic syncretism is overcome, a person highlights the value orientations of "leading a life" and takes responsibility for one’s fate. However, this is accompanied by the formalizing of the normative order and gradual loss of semantic and value dominants, with which it comes into conflict. It is proved that reverse processes occur in the modern disenchanted world, first of all, the newest syncretism develops as a result of the interpenetration of technogenic, natural, social realities, the removal of ethical antinomies. The newest "enchantment of the world" is also promoted by a stronger alienation and the desire to shift responsibility for one's own and common destiny onto external forces, the rejection of long-term rational life strategies and orientation to getting a quick result while paying no attention to mechanisms for achieving it. In addition, the absence of semantic and value dominants in modern culture is made up for by an archaic belief in extraordinary phenomena capable of solving the most acute problems quickly and efficiently, in the image and likeness of modern technologies.

Russians' attitude towards the Russian-Ukrainian conflict and the very possibility of its quantitative measurement became a subject of heated debates inside Russian sociological community. The most popular argument among professionals who believe that the level of support for the military actions is lower than the recorded values is the "Spiral of Silence" model used by E. Noelle-Neumann to explain people's unwillingness to express unpopular opinions out of fear of facing social disapproval. To test the hypothesis about the spiral of silence we used the method of all-Russian phone survey (N = 1977), repeating the railway test performed by Noelle-Neumann for measuring the willingness of supporters and opponents of the Russian-Ukrainian conflict to discuss it with their political opponents. The results of the research showed that in Russian public opinion about the Russian-Ukrainian conflict there is indeed a spiral of silence, as described by Noelle-Neumann, taking place. It influences both sides of the debate, its effect on the opponents of the conflict being, of course, significantly stronger (21% against 35%). However, opponents of military action have learned better than their opponents to resist the spiral of silence. Therefore, with a possible change in the climate of opinion in Russia, opponents of the military conflict will have greater opportunities than their opponents to promote their own narrative about the Russian-Ukrainian conflict. Along with the railway test, we have conducted research of attitudes towards the Russian-Ukrainian conflict in the respondents’ close circle, in which the share of the conflict supporters turns out to be much lower than among the respondents themselves. This may be an indirect sign of a shift in the samples towards the position of Russian-Ukrainian conflict supporters.

      

Based on the data of a number of all-Russian studies of the Institute of Sociology of FCTАS RAS, the article characterizes saving behavior factors of Russians and the dynamics of its change in 2003-2023. Some classical concepts explaining the savings behavior of the population are tested in relation to Russian conditions. It is demonstrated that their conclusions are only partially justified in the Russian society. It is shown, in particular, that representatives of mass strata of the population reacted to successive external shocks of different nature in recent years depending on the nature of these shocks, and not only on their severity or expected duration: to crises of purely economic nature, in accordance with the classical postulates, Russians responded by striving to maintain their usual level of consumption at the expense of savings, while in case of adding geopolitical risks and increasing uncertainty of the future, the prevalence of savings was increased. If for small savings no micro-level factors have been identified to have significant impact on their availability, then in the formation of savings that allow you to live on them for at least two months, subjective factors play a key role, in particular, readiness for long-term planning of one’s life, as well as a sense of respective economic and social success. At the same time, economic factors, though important, play a noticeably lesser role, affecting mainly amounts of savings.

The typological analysis of the first-year students’ educational strategies in the conditions of experimental learning within individual learning pathways have been considered in the article. Using the heuristic potential of the typological approach in relation to the data of a mass questionnaire survey of first-year students at the Tyumen State University, two parts of type-forming features were identified and the corresponding empirical indicators were formed. Using the methods of factorial and cluster analysis, three modal typological groups of first-year students have been discerned, and each of them has its own educational strategy at the university. Conclusions have been drawn about the expediency of building such a typology at the beginning of the student's educational pathway, as this enable to make timely management decisions on the development of desirable and correction of undesirable learning strategies, as well as the possibility of further monitoring measurements.

Using sociological monitoring empirical data, the authors analyze the impact of the artificial neural networks and artificial intelligence development on the social moods of Russians under conditions of transforming labor market as a systemic social institution in the aspect of forming citizens' confidence in the future and optimistic image of that future. More than half of Russians today express their concerns about the artificial intelligence impact on the labor market closely related to the feeling of uncertainty and lack of confidence in the future. Citizens who express concerns for artificial intelligence impact on labor employment more often express negative attitudes and lack of optimism regarding their personal and country’s future. Growing pessimism is observed in general among respondents who receive information via the Internet and social networks.

In this article, the results of the next wave of the monitoring sociological study “Television through the viewers` eyes” conducted in autumn 2022 are presented. It is shown, that media convergence blurs the boundaries between traditional and digital media, thus forming new patterns of media consumption that combine usage of traditional media channels with digital media channels, screens and platforms that provide access to media content. Modern media consumption is shaped not only by content of the product, but also by interface, functionality, convenience of platform, screen and service. The leaders in weekly audience are television, social networks and internet-video. The most demanded type of content is video, as it is seen by almost the whole audience (96% of respondents). Although all age groups have mastered digital media services to one degree or another, differences in media consumption practices between them remain at the level of preferences in choosing media channels, screens and types of the content. In the 15-34 age group, media consumption focused on internet-services (social networks, online-video, music and podcasts) dominates. The 35-54 age group also actively uses social networks and watches internet-video, while at the same time people of this age group retain high interest for such traditional media as television and radio. In media consumption of the senior age group (55+), television dominates, and the positions of the printed press are strong, but the level of mastering and usage of social networks and internet-video is already high.

      

It is not the first time that historical consciousness of Russians becomes a subject of attention for Russian sociologists. In this case, however, the monograph prepared by the scholars of an Institute of the Russian Academy of Sciences has a number of features of its own. The book’ authors team focuses on the links of historical consciousness with the civic identity of Russians, actualized, in particular, by current military operations and by Russophobia in the "collective West", etc. The book stands out for its compositional originality – a combination of field research data analysis with commentaries on the problems arising in connection with this analysis by experts from different fields of activity and disciplinary scholarly profiles. A promising interconnection of the issues raised by the study with the development of government national policy guidelines, as well as importance of scholarly elaborations of the modern national history problems are noted.

The author resolves a twofold task: to give essential characteristics of the modern society and to reveal the reasons for difficulties faced by the social theory while describing it. In this regard, structural and substantive shortcomings are revealed in the traditional class approach to social realit analysis as well as in competing stratum and network-based approaches. The discourse of ‘post-capitalism’ is critically evaluated. The concept of the capitalist essence of social relations dominating at present is deduced from the statement of an extremely high level of alienation characteristic for the modern technologically developed society. The notion of consumer society is conceptually tied to the matrix of capitalism and meaningfully clarified. The author’s central idea is that today we are dealing with authentic capitalism. It is a unipolar configuration with the only, i.e. ruling, class, in the center, and a declassed social mass in the vast periphery of the center. In overcoming the alienation and dictates of capital, an important role is assigned to the procedure of self-identification of individual.

The article continues the author's publications in the journal “Sociological Studies”, in which it was shown that contradictions of the neoliberal model of late capitalism pose a threat of the society involution towards conservative liberalism and refeudalization. The new text demonstrates a possibile implementing jf a progressive alternative to this trend and criticizes currently popular idea of "technosocialism". The author argues that the developing relations of transit to the "kingdom of freedom" in the space of late capitalism presupposes (1) the active regulation of social reproduction in order to effect a transition from the orientation of socio-economic development to profit and GDP growth to eco-socio-humanitarian priorities; (2) reforming property relations in the direction of socialization; (3) redistributing part of the parasitically used excess incomes of simulacra people (rentiers, financiers, show business persons, professional sports stars, etc.) for the purposes of social development and (4) the progress from manipulated democracy to dialectical unity of civil society and essential democracy. The subject of these changes – a kind of "progressor" – can become a union of creative workers of the public sector (“socialists”) with highly professional industrial proletariat realizing their strategic interests politically and ideologically.