Vol 12, No 1 (2024)
SOCIOLOGY OF MANAGEMENT
Urban identity and perception of the city in management discourse
Abstract
The discourse on the city, its forms, planning and management under uncertainty is undoubtedly the most widespread and relevant in the last ten years. The prospects for the development of the city and its urban community depend rather on the articulation and representation of the content of social demand from society, the population of specific cities, than on external factors. Citizens have a clear vision for the future and present of their city. The city perception of its inhabitants is correlated with the citizens’ ideas about the modern city and appears as a discourse in their judgments, opinions and assessments. Urban discourse is defined as positioning, representation of urban identity of citizens and reflection of the perception of the city identity. The presence of this discourse is found in the citizens’ narratives about the city. The study is based on the personal experience narratives, specifically the informants’ reflections upon their evaluation and perception of their city were analyzed. Narrative analysis, supplemented by sentiment analysis (positive or negative presentation of the material) was chosen as a research tactic, the research method is content analysis. The major purpose of this work is to study the perception of the identity of the city by citizens. The novelty of the work is determined by the design of the study, combining qualitative and quantitative approaches, the method of triangulation according to N. Denzin., as well as the choice of a subjective parameter (perception by citizens of their city) as a guideline for managerial actions in shaping the identity of the city in order to achieve connectivity “city – citizen”. An additional contribution of this paper is the construction of a paired logic of connectivity: “city – citizen” through the correlation between the citizens urban identity indicators and the identity of the city on the basis of empirical data of six cities in the Tyumen region. The study showed that citizens with a high level of urban identity perceive the city through personal participation in its life, through the manifestation of subjectivity.
Sociological Science and Social Practice. 2024;12(1):136-161
136-161
SOCIAL COMMUNICATION
Digitalization of the сultural sphere in Russia: stages and challenges
Abstract
Digitalization is currently an objective reality that constantly changes the lives of both individuals and society as a whole. However, international forums, researches, and monographs on digitalization primarily focus on issues related to digitalization in the fields of security, technology, economy, and education, and to a much lesser extent – the field of culture. This is to a large extent due to the fact that the majority of society considers culture as a sector of secondary importance in societal development, rather than one of the main and equal spheres of vital activity of society. Based on the approach to managing the cultural sphere as a process of mass communication, the author has developed a theoretical and methodological construct – a model for managing the cultural sphere in the conditions of digitalization. Analysis of the digitalization process dynam ics of the cultural sphere in Russia and the author’s practical experience show that the main factors influencing the speed and quality of digital development today are digi tal divides that determine both technological aspects and aspects requiring evaluation and development the actors of social management competencies. The author introdu ces the concept of «digital frustration» into the research practice understood as a result of the second-level digital divide, which, together with physical, psychological, biological and social frustrations can lead society to a state of social anomie.
Sociological Science and Social Practice. 2024;12(1):80-93
80-93
SOCIAL COMMUNICATION
Positioning of facts, meanings and terms in the media: theoretical approaches and practice of covering the problems of terrorism
Abstract
The interpretation and interrelation of the concepts of “fact”, “meaning”, “term” throughout the 20th–21st centuries were constantly in the zone of interest of researchers: sociologists, philosophers, cultural scientists, linguists, lawyers, as well as writers and journalists. At the same time, this connection, outwardly understandable and logical, was understood as an increasingly complex composition, depending both on the peculiarities of human perception and on the social modeling of various kinds of messages to target audiences. This article examines the dynamics and current state of these ideas, connected, on the one hand, with the internetization and mediatization of society; and, on the other, motivated by the presence and strengthening of the global socio-political conjuncture at the interstate and other levels. The author’s research focuses on the problems of terrorism as the most acute and revealing. There is no unified internationally accepted definition of terrorism. To an even greater extent, this applies to social practice, in the process of which the perpetrators and customers of terrorist attacks are determined by interested parties in different ways, up to the complete opposite. The immediate facts of terror are interpreted in the same way, when the fixation of a real event is supplemented or completely replaced by a demonstration of its meaning. The article examines the prerequisites and modern practice of creating and subsequent application of factual, meaning and terms elements in the compositions of published messages. By analyzing the materials of Russian and Western mass media, the author explores the dynamic change in the goals and roles of these elements in influencing target audiences. In the course of the study, the hypothesis is put forward and confirmed that reports of acts of terror turn into an instrument of information warfare, and their semantic part acquires a dominant character. Technologies are being developed to verify the facts for authenticity and identify the primary goals of the authors of the messages. However, the priority form of counter-actions is the formation of stereotypical attitudes among target groups to the rejection of events, statements and their content designations in the media, qualified by the state as terrorist.
Sociological Science and Social Practice. 2024;12(1):94-119
94-119
The relevance for the institute of mediation in modern Russia
Abstract
The article considers the problem of the relevance for the institute of mediation in Russia. Statistical data for the country concerning 2020 are presented and data for the Rostov region to the same period are analyzed. A comparative analysis is made with data for the same period in the Sverdlovsk region. The information and empirical base of the study consists of materials from: the website of the Judicial Department at the Supreme Court of the Russian Federation; the Association of Mediators of the Rostov region “Reconciliation”; “Reconciliation Rooms” in the Arbitration Court of the Sverdlovsk region. The methods of content analysis, statistical analysis, in-depth interviews, and a mass survey conducted among the employed population of the Rostov region aged 21 to 30 years were used. The study revealed: low awareness of respondents about the possibilities of using the mediation procedure, its structure and features; low level of modern mediation practice in the country. It is shown that in Russia today the courts are inundated with lawsuits, while mediation could well constructively solve many social problems. The necessity of creating favorable conditions for the development of mediation activity and its popularization is substantiated. The main reasons preventing the institution of mediation from becoming a popular activity among the population are identified: a low culture of conflict resolution, which in some cases leads to the avoidance of disputants from finding a suitable way to resolve it; a factor of insufficient confidence in the possibility of resolvinga dispute involving a third party. It is concluded that the lack of trust is primarily due to insufficient awareness of the population about the essence of the mediation procedure, about the legal status of the mediation agreement, which in the case of notarization has the force of an executive document. The wider use of all types of media, the increase in online platforms with the location of mediation webinars conducted by experienced specialists in this field will help spread the practice of mediation and will contribute to its early institutionalization.
Sociological Science and Social Practice. 2024;12(1):120-135
120-135
METHODOLOGY AND METHODS OF SOCIOLOGICAL RESEARCH
Life course studies – conceptual and methodological approaches and solution
Abstract
Studies of the life course address the fundamental issue of social sciences – understanding the social change, its directions, reasons and perspectives, the interaction of micro- and macro levels of social reality. Studies of life course developed independently in different social sciences and scientific traditions cover a broad range of topics, issues and methodological approaches. These variety of studies were grouped into few major research frameworks: psychological within the studies of personality development; longitudinal sociological focused on life course of different cohorts and comparative studies of generations, social groups, countries and regions; domain-based – studies of trajectories in different life domains; demographic studying the timing of life events; studies of stability and transformation of values and biographical research. The multiple methodological approaches to study the life course are suggested to group in two main categories – concurrent and retrospective which differ by the time distance between the occurrence of an event and the reporting about the event. Concurrent approach is characterized by relatively high reliability of the measurement, but low flexibility in selecting research indicators, long time for the organization of data collection and large financial investments. Retrospective approach provides high flexibility in organization and design of the survey, allows free selection of indicators to test research hypotheses, but the reliability of the data is hampered by the memory errors and context effect. None of these approaches alone can satisfy the needs and requirements of studying the life course and collecting dynamic multi-level data. The possible solution is to design and test the multimodal approach combining the advantages of different research methods and mitigating their drawbacks. The new long-term longitudinal project “Life course, values and expectations of the generation of 1990s” (G90) included the test of an autobiographical method of data collection for random samples of the general population in quantitative design. The testing revealed high sensitivity of the method to the format (handwritten, printed or oral), high differentiation between respondents in completeness of information and the selection of events included in the autobiography. Supplementing autobiographies by in-depth interviews increased the data standardization, completeness and comparability. The drawbacks of this method found during the survey are high demand for resources for data analysis, individual approach to each autobiography, low respondents’ cooperation in highly demanding tasks, and ethical issues. The future of the life course studies can be found in the convergence of different research frameworks, multidisciplinary research projects, and the application of mixed-model integrated methodology.
Sociological Science and Social Practice. 2024;12(1):6-24
6-24
Health behavior of young people: formation of typological attributes using the sentence completion method
Abstract
The article actualizes the problems of typological analysis of young people according to character of health behavior, among them the issues of the formation of typological attributes are particularly highlighted. These are the theoretical constructs; characteristics on the basis of which the respondent is assigned to one or another typological group – the carrier of a certain social type. Various indicators of health behavior claim to be typological attributes. Their choice depends on many factors: on the specifics of the population being studied, on the basis of the typology, on the purpose for which the typological analysis is carried out, on the accumulated experience of research practices in using indicators, etc. The article presents the results of an exploratory research devoted to the study of young people’s representations about health behavior. The initial methodological premise was that the heuristic potential of indicators of health behavior as typological attributes in different groups of young people is different. The plausibility of this premise was confirmed in the process of analyzing text data obtained by the sentence completion method. Based on the construction of pyramids of generalizations (according to a survey of three age groups of young people), the structural elements of the image of “health behavior” (elementary justifications, elements, components) were identified, and the dominant elements and components were identified. As a result, assumptions have been made about the adequacy of certain methodical solutions in the formation of typological attributes.
Sociological Science and Social Practice. 2024;12(1):25-61
25-61
Text Mining technologies in sociological analysis (using the example of studying students`ideas about the mission of a modern university)
Abstract
There are discussed in the article the possibilities of using Text Mining methods in the practice of analyzing the information received on the base of open questionnaire questions. The paper presents an example of unigrams and bigrams analysis, as well as the search for latent topic using thematic modeling. Empirical materials present the data of survey conducted in 2022, in which 929 students of one Moscow economics university took part. In the open question of the questionnaire, it was proposed to define the mission of the university. Information made it possible to get the subjective interpretation of the main significancy of higher education in modern conditions. The frequency analysis of unigrams, supplemented by a qualitative analysis of respondents’ statements, allowed reflecting the vocabulary of student discourse about the mission of the university. The articulation of bigrams was carried out on the basis of several statistical metrics, which made it possible to rank phrases and highlight a key set of concepts. The procedure revealed that in the perception of students, the priorities of the university are aimed at the transferring of professional knowledge and skills, in a broad sense – the training of qualified specialists. The social functions of the university, focused on meeting the needs of society and the state, are less pronounced in the conceptual interpretations of the interviewed students. At the next stage of the study the task of articulation and research of latent topics was put forward. The specific feature of thematic modeling is that the words combined into one topic reflect the distribution of words identified by the program, but not a topic that is literally understandable to a person. Taking into account the specifics of the method used, the authors demonstrated the results of search analysis in the practice of processing an open question. As it turned out, the keywords concentrated in the core of the main topics are mainly related to meeting the needs of the students themselves, leaving on the periphery of the verbalized definitions any understanding of the importance of the university as a platform for innovation, scientific research, entrepreneurial and other initiatives for the benefit of society and the country. The results of the presented research can be useful in rethinking the research tools of sociologists in the context of the active development of digital technologies, which requires testing new methods, understanding their real capabilities and limitations in solving the tasks of sociological research.
Sociological Science and Social Practice. 2024;12(1):62-79
62-79