The paper considers the peculiarities of the process of the political socialization in modern conditions, i.e. in complication of all spheres of human life and society, primarily the informational and socio-cultural component of this process, which is now dominated by non-linear trends – traumas and gaps. The author (1) represents the informational and social factors of risks and vulnerabilities for the system of interactions of the agents of political socialization under the conditions of pluralization of meanings, simulacres, and the artificial creation of “non-events” and “post-truth”; (2) substantiates the necessity of preservation of value components of socialization of youth as a social group with specific socio-psychological characteristics manifested in social and political spheres; (3) attempts to systematize social and digital information factors that influence the political consciousness and the process of purposeful socialization of young people, their civic activity and involvement in the political processes of the country.

The empirical study was aimed at identifying the degree of media activity of non-party youth associations and their influence on the political consciousness of Russian youth. The contentanalysis was conducted on the Medialogia media monitoring system to identify the quantitative characteristics of the publication and media activity of several of the most popular youth social movements and structures (the Nashi Youth Movement, the Revolutionary Communist Youth Union, the Yunarmiya Movement), as well as the Federal agencies for youth affairs of the Russian Federation, the Committee of the State Duma of the Russian Federation on youth policy and the National Council of Youth and Children’s Associations of Russia. The sample included more than 140,000 materials published between February 2019 and February 2022 in print media, radio, TV, Internet and news agencies at the federal level.

The types of crises that the State witnesses are so complex and multidimensional that anyone who has tried to pigeonhole the functions and activities of crisis communication managers inevitably has noticed that this is no easy job. The Covid-19 pandemic is a very special crisis in the sense that it is a new mass phenomenon which, nevertheless, has specific national features. The article encompasses the various governments’ communication with the general public in seven European countries during the initial stage of the pandemic and the communicative role played by political leaders and state structures within each nation. The paper considers the government crisis communication drawing on the principles of crisis communication theory and shows the extent to which government communication at this period followed the key indicators of effective communication. This study proposes a number of crisis communication models which contribute to the generalization of functions and characteristics of State communication affected by their specific political and cultural contexts.

This paper regards the communication aspects of the activities of Russian think tanks specializing in international relations. The importance of expertise on a wide range of issues of foreign policy is arising. This trend is observed both in Russia and abroad. However, simultaneously it is accompanied by the spreading post-truth, which often ensures the competence of a professional. The dominance of one of these discursive practices mostly depends on the communication peculiarities between experts, society, and authorities within a state. In such circumstances, the study of the Russian context seems to be very relevant. The work is organized in accordance with deductive logic: the first part analyzes general aspects (the notion of expert community, its functions, potential and limits of participation in public discussion and political process); the second part focuses on Russian think tanks specializing in international affairs as a more concrete case. The authors point out the features of communication with the public and study how the experts in international relations influence the Russian public opinion on foreign policy. In conclusion, the authors summarize the existing communication challenges and provide recommendations to increase the experts’ role in the public discussion on foreign policy.

We regard the screen phenomenon as a formative principle of modern culture. We have modeled the cultural concepts sequence representing the evolution of screen ontology: water – mirror – surface – shield – glass – portal – implant. The article covers (1) the issues of developing an integrated methodological approach to the interpretation of the formative, transmitting, and sense-making roles of the screen in modern culture; (2) systematic conceptual prognostications of screen transformational influence on cognition, corporeality, the aesthetic worldview of a modern man; (3) establishment of the “screen culture man” anthropological project formation in the contemporary world. A screen as a cultural phenomenon evolves and acquires expanded functions, revealing its own modes, the list of which is open-ended. Despite the fact that the formation of a screen phenomenon has not been completed, it is already obvious today that it is moving in the direction of a series of transformations of a screen-means into a screen-substance, a screen-object into a screen-subject, which inevitably levels out the value of a person looking at this screen, whose transformation occurs in the opposite direction to the screen.

The paper is dedicated to the issue of evaluating the effectiveness of intercultural communication. On the basis of empirical study that included qualitative content analysis, modeling and an expert survey, the main criteria for evaluating effectiveness were formulated based on the theory of social systems by Niklas Luhmann: (a) formation of a space of active intersubjectivity; (b) production and reproduction of new forms of communication. Based on these criteria, the authors propose a system of indicators. Criteria and indicators for evaluating and self-evaluating the effectiveness in intercultural communication were highly appreciated by experts and can be recognized as the main ones for assessing the effectiveness of intercultural communication within the framework of the activity-phenomenological model.

Analyzing the modern communication practices of authorities at different levels, as well as speeches and posts on social networks of a number of Russian officials, the author of points to noticeable changes in the style of communication between the state and society compared to previous periods. These changes seem to be caused by the need for the authorities to master the increasingly popular new media and communicate with an audience that, due to its training, cannot perceive information in an official style. The trigger of these changes, outlined since the advent of new means of communication and supported by the active spread of the Internet, was the situation of the coronavirus pandemic, which required the state to build crisis communications that require clarity of messages, speed of their delivery and appeal to the emotions of the audience. The noted changes can be considered a trend that will only intensify, including due to the growth in popularity of ‘plain and easy language’ observed in many European countries, which has become a response to the problem of low level of reader literacy. However, it will mainly be supported due to the active development of new formats of communication between the state and society, built on the basis of popular social networks among the audience, which can be considered the result of the so-called fifth communication revolution, which blurs the line between written and oral speech and leads to the emergence of new speech genres. State institutions willingly accept changes and express a desire to seek a new tone of voice in communication with citizens, as well as to learn relevant communication practices.

The paper considers the process of digitalization of Russian museums as an important project of state. The author reviews and analyses the approaches to the definition of the term digitalization in Russian sociology and studies the measure of influence of the COVID-19 pandemic on the rate of digitalization of museums based on the interim results of the national project “Culture” dedicated to digitalization of the infrastructure of the cultural sphere. Within this study the author shows the experience of the digitalization process on the example of domestic museums and as successfully implemented examples that contributed to the improvement of the digital communication process, analyzes the processes of digitizing museum expositions, introducing virtual reality mechanisms, audio guides (their analogues in the form of QR codes), and online events. Based on these technologies, the author comes to conclusion (1) about the multifaceted activities of museums, which cease to be just a place to store exhibits of historical and cultural value, and (2) that modern social demands make the issue of digitalization of museums relevant in the context of communication interaction in society. Russia has successful examples of implemented cases of digital museums, but a further continuation of this work is required, since many museums have partially implemented digitalization.

The author provides a symbolic approach to understanding the nature of the construction of the Eurasian identity within the framework of the formation of the Eurasian Economic Union. The purpose of the study is to give a philosophical analysis of the formation of a symbolic model of the Eurasian identity. The author uses dialectical, phenomenological and systemic approaches. The key idea is that symbols can be seen as a social technology for creating an identity. The author states that the symbolic model of the Eurasian Economic Union is formed according to the logic of integration – disintegration of connection – separation from the Soviet symbolic system. Within the framework of the EAEU, the logic of integration and connection is based on an attempt to revive the meanings of symbols from a common past history, which can become the basis for the formation of a symbolic model of Eurasian identity. The author comes to the conclusion that symbols can be considered as a creative technology for the formation of the Eurasian symbolic system, access to the socio-cultural codes of which will help the participants in the integration process to minimize the barriers that prevent the most effective mutual understanding. The main conclusions of the study can form the basis of practical recommendations in the field of the cultural policy of the EAEU.

The article concentrates on the study of the current problem of communication aspects of secondary socialization in the modern information society. Media play a significant role in all areas of post-industrial society, and socialization processes, in particular secondary socialization, are no exception. In this article the phenomenon of secondary socialization is described, approaches to its comprehensive understanding both from the point of view of classics of sociology and modern researchers are offered. An idea of the mechanism of functioning of this social phenomenon is given from the author’s point of view. The importance of media as the main channel for the transmission of socializing content in the modern socialization process in a society with intense communication links is also studied. The concept of the “media significant other” is given as a new approach to understanding the communication aspects of secondary socialization in modern society. The essence of the “media significant other” concept is revealed in the connection with the phenomenon of the “significant other”, also its features and its place in the system of secondary socialization is considered. Using the example of influencers, the case of functioning of the “media significant other” in the information and socialization space is considered. The article analyzes the data of a study aimed at empirically fixing the existence of the phenomenon of “media significant others” as personalities from the media sphere who influence following respondents.

The article provides an review of problematization of social wellbeing. The author highlights the approaches to substantiating the definition of a phenomenon in various branches of knowledge based on the historical method and proposes to apply an interdisciplinary approach based on a divergent vision of the phenomenon as be the most relevant in the modern context of the socio-economic development of society. An important research aspect is the linguistic and semantic analysis of those forms that are used for the semantic expression of the phenomenon. The conceptualization of reality by an individual takes place with the help of the language and linguistic rules that are characteristic of certain societies. At the same time, the author outlines the difference between that the phenomena of wellbeing per se and social wellbeing. The paper also highlights the existential and meaning-forming aspect of social wellbeing. According to the author, the phenomenon of social wellbeing is a reflection of the cognitive movement of the individual and society on the way to the axiological reflection of the socio-cultural being of the individual. Herewith, constant transformation and changes in comprehension are possible, which may conflict with the accumulated experience or even ignore it. 

The tension that arose between the Russia and the Western led to the disruption of international communications in the economic, political and socio-cultural spheres. This situation led, accordingly, to breaks in scientific contacts between Russian Russian and foreign scientists and significantly limited the possibilities of teamwork with international participation. Under these conditions, the Russian scientific community presumes to capitalize on human potential and transform the models of functioning of scientific communities taking into account the gaps in international scientific communications. The paper actualizes the current state and the changes that are coming in the production of scientific capital and in global scientific communications. Besed on the review of recent media publications and the experience of managing the human potential of foreign and domestic communities, the author provides a vision of the development of capital of the scientific sphere and gives the layout of the structure of the human potential of researchers formed in the process of R&D activity.

The paper represents an analytical review of the existing literature on the social function of memes on COVID-19. The author reviews mainly the literature of the last ten years, though the disclosure of the topic demands citing the fundamental works dedicated to the history of the emergence of memes by M.M. Bakhtin, R. Dawkins and D. Rushkoff. When describing the classification and social functions of memes, the author took into account cultural and linguistic studies of such authors as A.B. Bocharov, A.V. Krokhina, N.A. Zinovieva, Y.V. Shchurina. In the context of the social function of pandemic memes, the author based the analysis on the articles of local authors studying the social and cultural significance of such memes. However, the identified gaps in the local literature motivated the author to refer to similar foreign studies, such as Flecha Ortiz’s work on the cultural specifics of Spanish speaking users’ perception of pandemic memes. At the end the author concludes that, despite the fact that the topic is definitely of interest to the scientific community, and specific trends and directions in its study have already been traced, it has not yet been studied enough, and there are no domestic studies dedicated to this issue at the moment.

The development of mass media and social networks has radically changed the consumption of content by the audience, which has in fact turned into relatively separated communities of users, i.e. subjects of communication processes. Users get and actively use the possibility to choose the format, the channel and the content based on their personal experience, psycho-emotional state, socio-cultural characteristics. However, the users choice is not always conscious, and besides that, the users self-identification and further choice of channel and content is often based on ‘friend-or-foe’ principle, which leads to an increase in social and political polarization in the process of media consumption. The paper is based on the analysis of Russian and foreign sources dedicated to the behaviour of the audience of modern media and to the processes associated with fragmentation and demassification of the media audience. As follows from the analysis of these sources and from the standpoint of a structural approach to the study of social systems, the fragmentation of the audience and the polarization of public opinion are conditioned, besides arising political barriers, by the peculiarities of the functioning of the modern media system, i.e. make part of its attributive characteristics.