"The Journal of Sociology and Social Anthropology" special issue

Internet portal "Economics. Sociology. Management" has published the special issue of "The Journal of Sociology and Social Anthropology" with articles written by the participants of the Fulbright Summer School-2006. All materials are avaliable here.


Портал "Экономика. Социология. Менеджмент" опубликовал спецвыпуск "Журнала социологии и социальной антропологии", содержащий материалы летней Фулбрайтовской школы 2006 "Потребление как коммуникация". Статьи доступны здесь.

Ilyin's sites

Professor Ilyin's sites on sociology of consumption:

• consumers.narod.ru
  
• sociology.ru
  

Essay Competition “Human Values in the Age of Consumerism”

Essay Competition
“Human Values in the Age of Consumerism”

Write a short essay (between 1000 and 1200 words) that addresses the theme of ‘human values in the age of consumption’.
The essay can take its start from Stuart Ewen’s photograph of an old woman waiting for a bus under a glossy image in a cosmetic advertisement. The image expresses the tensions and ironies of our world where symbolic consumption has become part of everyday life.
We invite you to write about the impact of culture, permeated by commercial images and messages of desire, upon social and personal values, and on the importance of community and human interaction in society at large.
Very often, we all witness how things become valued expressions of identity, markers of social success or failure, fetishes substituting for human presence (“Show me what you have and I’ll tell you what you are”). Moreover, the aggressive expansion of consumerism has provoked the growth of anti-consumerist counter-culture, which insists on the need to be rather than to have. Even this response, however, might be taken to be a result of a consumer culture. In any case, the exploration of one’s relation to things in our time has become a way to explore the meaning of human life today.
Some of the questions you might address in your essay are suggested below (feel free to put forward your own for discussion!).
· How much of a home has this new environment become for us? Do you feel comfortable there?
· Do you share in the nostalgia for the past or apprehensions of the future that are often expressed?
· How does a climate infused with consumerist values affect our sense of what we are and our relationships with others in the “human family” (among people of different generations, genders, cultural and social backgrounds, “walks of life”, nations)?
· Has the idea of "a good life" changed with the advent of consumerism? What have we lost? What have we gained? Do you think our lives are flattened and trivialized, or newly enriched?
· Have advertising’s “truths” marginalized other forms of wisdom? Need traditional forms of knowledge be questioned and educational goals reviewed in its light?
· How has the idea of human needs changed?
· Is the moral life of the individual and society in jeopardy or is this an opportunity for embracing new and progressive definitions of morality?

Human Values in the Age of Consumerism

Дорогие коллеги!

По инициативе Московского Государственного Университета им. М.В. Ломоносова и Российской Ассоциации стипендиатов Программы Фулбрайта в ноябре 2006 года проводится общероссийский конкурс студенческих эссе на тему «Человеческие ценности в век потребления» (“Human Values in the Age of Consumerism”). К участию приглашаются студенты и аспиранты российских вузов, изучающие английский язык.
Главная цель конкурса – выявить среди учащихся российской высшей школы людей, способных нетривиально мыслить и убедительно, ярко, свободно выражать мысль, используя письменную речь на английском языке, – людей, сочетающих в себе основательную профессиональную подготовку с коммуникативной одаренностью и свободным владением языком международного общения. В отсутствие этих навыков современный профессионал не может быть и чувствовать себя состоятельным, и напротив: наличие их – залог успешного трудоустройства и профессионального развития.
Феномен потребления принимает в наши дни глобальный характер, он проявляет себя во всех сферах жизни и открыт наблюдению и анализу в разных измерениях - философском, социальном, экономическом, политическом, историко-культурном, психологическом, эстетическом, гендерном, и других, порой неожиданных.
Свободный жанр эссе допускает разность возможных подходов к выполнению творческого задания, а это, в свою очередь, предполагает разнообразие критериев оценки и делает необходимым введение ряда номинаций. Оценивать студенческие работы будет международное жюри, в которое войдут представители ведущих вузов России и США. Работы финалистов и победителей конкурса будут отмечены дипломами, публикацией, возможны иные варианты награждения.
Один из критериев оценки работы - способность творчески применить в ней опыт и методы академической дисциплины, изучаемой студентом. Было бы полезно не только разместить на информационных стендах Вашего вуза объявления о конкурсе, но и постараться предварить написание эссе коллективным обсуждением темы (brainstorming workshop).
Другой, не менее существенный критерий оценки конкурсных эссе - качество аргументации, риторические достоинства, выразительность и образность письма, стиль. Притом, что работа должна быть абсолютно самостоятельной, консультации с преподавателями английского языка не только разрешаются, но и приветствуются. Вуз (факультет, кафедра) может организовать собственное жюри для предварительного отбора лучших работ с их коллективным публичным обсуждением.
Работы следует высылать по электронному адресу school@philol.msu.ru прикрепленным файлом. При этом в графе «тема» Вашего сообщения необходима пометка «Конкурс эссе». Файл должен быть сохранен в формате MS Word и назван фамилией автора работы, записанной строчными латинскими символами (например: ivanov.doc). Текст работы должны предварять: имя и фамилия автора, университет и курс, адрес электронной почты или иная контактная информация, краткие сведения о себе (около 100 слов). Работа выполняется шрифтом Times New Roman, кегль 14, междустрочный интервал – 1,5 пункта. Объем работы – до 4 страниц (1000-1200 слов). Срок подачи работ на конкурс – до 1 декабря 2006г.

Внимание! Работы, оформленные с нарушением вышеприведенного стандарта или поданные позже указанного срока, к рассмотрению не принимаются!

Оргкомитет конкурса

New photos

Here you can find some photos from our summer school :)

Tatiana Postnikova: A Communication of the Cinema in a space of consumption

Postnikova T.V.,
Postgraduate student, Faculty of Philosophy,
Moscow State University named after M.V. Lomonosov

Communication characteristics of cinematography had been discussed at the works of semioticians of cinema in sixties-seventies of XX century. The idea of the communication was justified by cinema’s ideological influence on the masses. Today the ideology of politics has been replaced by the ideology of consumption.
Communicative function of cinema is illustrated by the simple scheme «the sender-message-addressee»1. The communicative act takes place in a context and is characterized by contact2. The idea of communicativeness of cinema is based on the classical literary concept of authorship when it was proposed that the author of film is "transmitting" to spectators some information which was coded and represented by signs, spectators in their turn should decode the messadge3. "Code", "coding" in this conception was not used in sense of "cipher", since the information should be clear, readable, and signs should be transparent for the ordinary spectator. The sense of the communicative concept consisted in supporting ideological function of a cinema.
The communications of cinema in modern consumer society does not belong to the area of ideology, but to the area of aesthetics. In past the communications reported the information, i.e. a film was used as a "transmitter" of messages, but in present cinema is used for achievement of pleasure. The mechanism of achievement of pleasure is based on memory, i.e. function of recognizability. The pleasure brings clear, well-known things and places a consumer into "a zone of comfort".
Consumption is dependent not on the theory of the information, but on achievement of pleasure, on satisfaction of desire. The desire consists on emotional experience. Nevertheless, the satisfaction of desire leans on semiotics. In fact maintenance of the scheme of the communicative act means availability of the information, and availability, in turn, conducts to satisfaction of desire. To consume means to satisfy a desire generated under somebody’s influence (as an example we can analyze films of German expressionism, Eisenstein, Hitchcock).
The consumer communication loses Author and Manager takes his place. Today a producer appears in a position of the author of the film, which "is transferring" the information to spectators. So, the communication is carried out between the producer serving commercial interest (and being an expert in the sphere of "pleasures", to be exact, in the income of "pleasures") and the spectator receiving in "output" his emotions. The director is not an author any more, however the spectator remains passive "receiver" (Bakhtin carried on polemics with such understanding of the communication4). The process of consumer’s interest forming does not depend on the information which must be communicate to society but from spectators’ desire to receive emotions (from special effects, elements of a thriller, etc.). Ethically consumption became useful. "To consume on advantage" means to use film as an information occasion for a society (for example, the art house films in intellectual community as a label of their participation in actual events).
Let us turn to author's cinema, noncommercial cinema. The noncommercial cinema is the kind of cinema which do not appeal to the consumer. The author remains in a appropriate role, but the communicative scheme is broken: such cinema do not communicate with spectator.
Films which are not intended for consumer have autocommunicative construction, here the narration is not public work, but a diary containing "codes", which inaccessible to the foreign sight, "ciphered" in inconspicuous, nothing to the form giving out. The inconsumable cinema contains the signs excluding breadth of the communications (for example, films of A.Sokurov, V.Kobrin). Signs in general mean only what value the spectator invest. Signs of author's cinema are first of all signs of the Author, and this vetos the communications.

1 Lotman U. in: Лотман Ю.М. Семиотика кино и проблемы киноэстетики. Таллин, 1973.
2 Jacobson R. in: Якобсон Р. Лингвистика и поэтика // Структурализм «за» и «против». М., 1975.
3 Eco U. in: Эко У. О членениях кинематографического кода // Строение фильма. Некоторые проблемы анализа произведений экрана. Под ред. Разлогова К. М., 1985.
4 Bahtin M. in: Бахтин М.М. Проблема речевых жанров // Бахтин М.М. Эстетика словесного творчества. М., 1979.

Photos

Here you can find photos of participants.

Inna Mazurenko: The logic of constructing identity through consumption

Inna Mazurenko
Chita State University, Department of management, chair of political science and management, assistant; Russian Academy of public service at president of Russian Federation, chair of social philosophy, post-graduate student.

Among all problems actualized by the processes of globalization the main one is the problem of constructing national and cultural identity. The formation of identity suggests such an internalization of customs, traditions, values and norms that a person identifies himself (herself) with a group «we». The processes of globalization weaken state barriers and, as a result, make communication free. Cross-cultural communication promotes the consumption of cultural norms and standardizes them.
The formation of new type of identity – global – is going today. The intensification of economic, politic, social and cultural processes between countries makes the world «a global village». People identify themselves with a global organism. This «dialogue» makes consumption of new customs, habits and norms.
The modern phase of globalization may be called Americanization because Internet and information revolution, transnational companies and vanguard technologies, cultural brands have American origin. Proamerican identity forms everything «American» through consumption.
The history will show us the readiness of people to identify themselves with the USA. Nowadays many people are ready to mix in global collage and remaining «different» be united.

Elena Volobuyeva

Elena Volobuyeva
Stavropol State University, Department of romanian-germany languages, chair of intercultural communications, senior professor.

One could hardly imagine today’s world without advertising. It is everywhere. That’s why advertisement today is investigated in the framework of many special disciplines. Advertisement discourse is interesting from the point of view, that it is oriented on the initiating of the message receiver for the post –communicative activity that includes buying of goods and services. At the same time advertisement discourse reflects all the dynamic changes going on in the contemporary society. Moreover in most cases advertisement discourse presents the case of intermodule integration. The addressee using the principal of cooperation should accumulate the information both from verbal and non-verbal parts of advertising. Getting the information one brings it together with our previous knowledge and experience and according to this we activate particular cognitive frames. In other case the right interpretation of the information is apt to fail. This fact is quite important for international advertising, that often underestimate the absence of particular basic cultural knowledge (cultural presuppositions) of the receiver. The difficulties arise from the fact that the majority of cultural presuppositions exist in unconscious form of the advertising creator (he is a member of particular culture) and are taken by him for granted.
The goal of our project is to investigate the functioning of cultural presuppositions in American advertisement discourse. As the basic methods will be used observation, systematic description, deduction, induction semantic and pragmatic analysis, empirical research, goal-seeking readout and description.

Ekaterina Taratuta: Consumption: the newest rituals of social risk management

Ekaterina Taratuta
Saint-Petersburg State University, Department of philosophy, chair of social philosophy, assistant; Nevsky Institute of Language and Culture, Department of PR and communications, associate professor.

It is often believed nowadays that the consumption models existing in the contemporary Western societies are correlated mostly with the specifically post-modern and/or post-industrial construction of world as a whole and correspond to a certain dominating view of the world which differs in principle from the positivist reformative pathos of the Modern time.
However, the contemporary utopia of consumption not so much repeals the modernist disposition to improvement of the world as canalizes this intention, in rather successful and distinctive way. The consumption demand strategy of the contemporary society comprises political, esthetic, scientific and other social declarations with their quite classical modernist characteristic pathos. However, all these social intentions are accumulated and carefully veiled within the contemporary social constructions of consumption.
Generally it is possible to define sense of the modernist strategies of social transformations as a distinctive management of risks. Actually society can hardly operate risks and ensure itself from threats; however, society usually persists to engaging in attempts of doing it. Therewith the only way of increase of life comfort with this respect is usually found in establishing certain rituals as related to risks. For instance, contemporary management of risks is not so much an effective mechanism of defense against them as the newest variant of the kind of ritual, the magic incantation against adversity by the very fact of the mechanism existence or presence. Therewith ritualization as such is a way of involvement of a singular event into regular schemes describing repeatable events. This involvement starts from work out of a method, a way of regulation (which should imply criteria of experimental verification, etc, etc.).
Where does society find a source of risk as such? Let me suppose that – at least for a consumption society – the source of potential instability is seen in enthusiasms of all kinds, but especially enthusiasms which are not embodied into institutionalized forms. However, the post-modern society is as much enthusiastic as any other (that is, it has its will and desire of social changes). The ideology of consumption turns to be therewith rather complicated social construction, since it allows transforming various differentiated social intentions into one universal instinct of consumption. Therewith the key social strategies of risk management turn to be transformed in a corresponding way. This kind of unification surely looks more usable and controllable on its initial stage, and it surely comprises the corresponding accumulation of risks, so that any managerial error could bring to much more serious consequences, down to social explosion.

Ekaterina Naumenko: Consumption as an instrument of identity construction: a qualitative study design

Ekaterina Naumenko
Moscow State Institute of International Relations (MGIMO-University), Department of international journalism, branch of sociology, professor

The complex issue of consumption has received wide attention in the social sciences and continues to be of great interest. Today consumption may be seen as a central social and cultural process involving cultural signs and symbols, not simply as an economic and utilitarian process. In a world in which traditional social bonds and class boundaries are weakening the use of consumer goods and patterns of consumption plays an important role in creating or confirming an individual sense of self or personal identity, maintaining and demarcating boundaries between social groups. Many people’s sense of identity is now bound up with their patterns of consumption rather than their work roles. Because of the wide range and character of goods and services currently on offer in the marketplace, individuals become free to select an identity for themselves. Under post-modern conditions, identities are in constant change; individuals mix and match what were formerly distinct categories. Different forms of style in clothing, cars, interior décor, television viewing or types of food, which were clearly delineated in modernity as distinct patterns for specific social status group, become more mixed up upon modernity. Adolescence is typically the time in which individuals begin the process of identity formation that involves the development of a self-structure, an internal, self constructed, dynamic organization of drives, abilities, believes and individual history.
The purpose of the project I’m working on now is to examine how young people construct their identities through different consumption practices. My research is based on secondary data gleaned from a larger qualitative study that examined everyday practices and life strategies of young people in the forming consumer society headed by Vladimir Ilyin. Semi-structures in-depth interviews were conducted with 20 students (17-26 years) from different universities of Moscow in June-August 2005. Prospective participants were recruited by snowball and purposive sampling through the acquaintances of study participants.
The study employs a communicative act paradigm in which language more generally is a model for all actions and which is common to theorists as Veblen, Goffman, Bourdieu, Barthes and Baudrillard. From this perspective, consumer actions are viewed as symbolic acts or signs. Individuals employ material objects to send messages to other and thus to symbolize or express an existing social relationship. The consumption pattern that consumers select, whether represented by their choice of car, clothes or furnishings can be regarded as indicative of their self-identity and of how they wish other to regard them. Constructing his identity, an individual skillfully manipulate impressions of those around him. By means of sophisticated consumer practices and all kinds of manoeuvres he is aiming to perform successful self-presentation.
Interview transcripts are being analyzed using the discursive narrative analysis consistent with the structural narrative analysis and the constant comparative method. Narrative analysis is often used in the researches of identification. Since we think of ourselves in storied form, these in-depth interviews transcripts indeed were narrative in form. People construct identities by locating themselves in ongoing narrative histories. When asked “Who are you?” many people give a narrative account of the past, a chronologically organized, mini-story of sorts. By examining narratives we can gain insight into the multiple meanings the people bring to and derive from consumption and how consumption plays a role in identity construction.
One the findings of this study is that person’s identification with particular community supposes demarcation of social boundaries between “us” and “them” on the base of distinction between normative and non-normative consumer practices. For example, the position of people following high consumer standards embedded by consumerist ideology and hegemonic mass media discourse is fixed in their right to blame and punish those who deviate; this identification strategy uses the procedures of stigmatization of those who don’t want to be “proper consumers”.
Secondary data analysis is regarded here as a useful first step in subsequent designing the primary data collection process.

Olga Belokhvostova: Symbol Consumption and adoption of immigrants.

Olga Belokhvostova
Yaroslavl Demidov State University, chair of social and political studies

There is a myth that the developed societies do not need immigrants. The demographic situation and inquiries of the labour market blast it. The migrants who just have arrived to the country, with rare exception, don’t feel themselves included in an active social life. Their integration cannot occur automatically and demands various mechanisms. One of them is a formation of the certain symbolical field that can both assist adoption of immigrants or not.
Process of consumption comes out on the top in a new western way of life that extends widely in the world. It is not just a way of satisfaction of the minimal human needs. It turned in a cult that promoted by the institutes of socialization. Consumption of symbols takes on special significance in political sphere. Especially, this process became more actual with the development of mass communication that gives unprecedented chance for manipulation. Thus, there is an opportunity to form the firm identity: we are Americans, we are Russians. How does "unfamiliar" bodies such as immigrants are built in this discourse?
For example, the French consumer receives only symbols of French culture without an impurity of others. The absence of "Muslim" announcers on TV, and weak representation "not the Frenchmen" in national assembly in the state that has 5,8 mln Muslims verify this thesis. The Russian consumer gets the similar message. The feature of a discourse devoted to migrants in Russia is not simple recognitions of distinction of cultures, but also belief in genetic incompatibility among some of them. That is how appearing dichotomizing pairs: "Caucasians" - "Russians", "Chinese" - "Russians". Therefore "non-Russians" have a choice: actively exist without ethnic features, or not to have social lifts, keeping them. So in Russia we have a homogeneous discourse at a symbolical level while there is more that 150 ethnic groups exist in the country.
The American society (which M. Walzer carries to the immigrant one) offers absolutely other variant of coexistence of ethnoses. One of its features is the formation of another discursive fields. The society has build on the immigrants. That is why the American discourse abounds with symbols of various cultures: the Mexican food, the French cosmetics, the Italian art. Through acceptance of the average representation of these cultures mass consumption washes away borders of identity within the limits of the country. It proves with the fact of desperate search of new identity, which is popular in the American society.
Thus, a question of the influence of individual consumption on identity and attitudes towards immigrants is ambiguous. In many respects these processes depend on administrative practices, positions of federal and regional elites, ethnic groups and expert community. The intensity of the ethnocentric discourse is up to these actors.

Anastasia Machuzhak: Language and Culture in the philosophy of Umberto Eko

Anastasia Machuzhak
Tver State Technical University, Department of Humanities, chair of philosophy and psychology.

The actuality of the research-work is due to the insufficient study of Eko’s cultural-philosophical heritage in Russian literature regarding Western philosophy of the newest period. Meanwhile, today Eko is one of the most authoritative scholars engaged in cultural philosophy studies. That’s why the analysis of Eko’s heritage perception being culturally conditioned is considered to be of great importance nowadays.
The object of the research is Eko’s works on philosophy, containing his views on the process of communication and peculiarities of modern culture.
The subject of the research is interconnection and interaction of language and culture in the philosophy of Umberto Eko.
The thesis will comprise two chapters in which the following aspects are going to be approached.
In the first chapter there will be given an analysis of semiotic-symbolic means of the language. In this respect it will be necessary to highlight the way Eko regards the problem of signs, his views on interconnection between symbol and metaphor and his concept of symbolic imagination

Maria Luchkova: Forming and transformation of city mediate space

Maria Luchkova
European University at St.Petersburg, Art History Departement, post-graduate student.

This research considers urban mediate spaces. The concept “mediate space” means kinds of spaces, which can be used as mediator. In the sphere of urban planning this kind of spaces widely distributed. Mediate spaces in urban planning has function of entrance and exit, transition between spaces of different types. So mediate spaces are special elements of city structure, which tie together and at the same time demarcate urban space. Urban mediate spaces can be formed by different architectural and urban planning forms (it can be gate or arch, square, stairs, bridge or harbor or their combination as well as other elements of city structure), but their primary feature is combination of two functions: in one hand, it is transition between diverse spaces (for example, between city and nature, or between city districts); in the other hand, they mark boundaries of city or district.

Subject: city mediate spaces as town-planning and spatial unit, part of city structure; forming principles of city mediate spaces and its historical transformation.
Problem: delineation of term “city mediate space”, description of its historical transformation and peculiarities.
Objectives:
- delineation and definition of term “city mediate space” in town-planning context;
- analysis of its historical transformation of mediate spaces in world town-planning practice;
- uncovering and analysis of forming principles of mediate spaces;
- analysis of mediate spaces role in city structure forming
- considering of mediate spaces symbolic
- classification of city mediate spaces

Oksana Zhludova: Brand and corporate culture as a basis (source) and the consumer of the industry psychicalconditions"

Oksana Zhludova
Saint-Petersburg State University of Engineering and Economics, Department of general management, chair of managing labour and social prosesses, associate professor; Saint-Petersburg State University of Architecture and Civil Engineering, chair of management.

Since 1980th years in sphere of economy there has come " an era of brands ". The brand as a product is designed on creation of long term relationships with clients, builds in an emotional component in each contact and achieves loyalty to trade mark. Researchers in the field of advertising say, the new generation aims brand’s consumption as the sensual images which are represented them to other people or the organizations and made communications. This tendency has led to formation of the industry of psychical conditions which is aimed to produce and distribute the products (technologies) for consumer behavior management. By means of a brand we can impose to the consumer the sense of experiences - the person automatically feels concrete emotion in the acquainted situation, passing process of search of sense and valuation. The same product (service) has chance to take various reactions on the consumer market, therefore, organizations need to manage them so that to survive in the market. The way of this control is the brand - society level and the corporative culture – organizational level. Interaction of these theoretical tools creates a double situation. On the one hand, the relationships with the consumers which are designed on the base certain psychical conditions, develop or stop depending on conformity of an emotional sense of people and an offered brand. Therefore, competitive advantage of each organization is the management of organizational members’ behavior and psychical conditions. The result of corporative culture development’s actions becomes the compelled consumption by personnel those products that either to conform to concrete psychical conditions for successful organizational being or to compensate influence of imposed emotions which person feels in professional activity process by the organization. On the other hand, the organization is the active consumer various psychical conditions. The person of a consumer society is characterized by the whole set of emotional stereotypes which sometimes opposite each other. Somewhat, the person has real experience from "events" never had places in its real life without any efforts but he just consumers various psychical conditions. The modern organization can be attractive for such person as a job place or organization can improve a personnel motivation in only case: the corporative culture will offer them required psychical conditions. The creation process of some psychical conditions must be permanently innovation unless the organization has a risk to lose control by consumer and personnel behavior management.It is necessary to note, that many scientists prognosticate the further development of the tendencies and mark the problems connected with it both for a person and the organization and a society. So that the industry psychical conditions are extremely favorable business today there is a probability of human being changes.

Grigory Dobromelov: Russia as a brand in the world area

Grigory Dobromelov
Saint-Petersburg State University, Department of philosophy, chair of political institutes and applied political researches, post-graduate student, professor;
Centre of empirical political researches of Saint-Petersburg State University;
director of Centre of social and economic examination “Public opinion”;
analyst of news agency “Rosbalt”.

The project is devoted to the perception of Russia as a brand in the world area. At the present time Russia is regarded by the world community as a could, dark state, ruled by KGB. Vladimir Putin officially said that Russia had a problem with its image. Now Russian government is realizing a publicity campaign to correct this image before G8.

In the public opinion poll held in the USA, the Americans mentioned 10 things, which in their mind are connected with Russia. Mostly they mentioned KGB, snow and mafia. The positive associations were by Russian art and culture, but they were only at the end of the list. The results of the poll about Russian brands were worse than the first one. Kalashnikov and Molotov's cocktail were the only two brands, which were mentioned.

There are two main approaches to analyze Russia as a brand. The partisans of the first approach suppose that, present Russia is not the values inheritress of Soviet Union and Russian empire. Therefore we should create it. Other one told about the succession between historical Russia and the present state.

I think that the second approach is more accurate, bur it demands more financial and non-financial resources. It is necessary to elaborate efficient steps with the purpose of correction the perception of the brand. The order of the operation should be the same as in marketing. First we should make a sociological analyze of the brand at the present phase, than we are begin to the stage of working-out of a strategy of adjustment of the brand. At the third step the new stratagy is realized through necessary mass media.

Irina Gavrilova: Consumption phenomenon in the medical mode of sociocultural communication.

Irina Gavrilova
Volgograd State Medical University
chair of foreign languages, senior professor;
chair of clinical psychology and social work, research worker.

The anthropocentric paradigm of modern world forces a Man to change the attitude to himself and the world that surrounds him. Any practical activity turns into the object for investigation by means of introspection out for understanding and perception the fundamentals of life, as well as, revealing the dominants. Since all these attempts conduce towards the covered or exposed felicitous (from the word felicity) aim (a state of extreme satisfaction, peace of mind; achievement and consumption of the things desired ‑ happiness), the ontological consumption may be observed as one of the forms of self cognition, where cultural, mental, geographical, historical, situational, etc. subdivisions may be distinguished. Biomedical mode of consumption both in a form of discourse and a separate conglomerate of value-accentuated aims is rich for its manifestations. Despite the freedom in relations, there are the taboos for the interference in the medical space. Medicine is supposed to be the principle spot on the world conceptual map, which has existed unchangeable since time immemorial. But, at the same time, it alters step-by-step due to the humanity development incorporating and depositing the knowledge left by Ages and Peoples.
Since consumption is a text consisting of the symbols, in most cases, then physician’s gown must be regarded as a symbol, which left aside fashion trends through the centuries. But the 1-st observation differentiates it into a surgical costume, nurse’s dressing, or pharmacist gown (they belong to different occupations, therefore, the right for the mistake varies). Furthermore, sign as a phenomenon is also presented in consumption, thus, its medical mode may divide people into social groups of exogenous and endogenous background. Endogenous factor is presented, for example, when one physician visits another one («I visited the colleague, but the one, who is the most experienced of all or a friend of mine, but also experienced». In other words, I belong to that society, whose members are capable to obtain a first-rate timely and even free of charge consultation, and out of turn. It should be mentioned that this tradition has been precipitated for centuries, i.e. the doctor always sees the patient-colleague out of turn). As a non-verbal communication, this rule singles out the doctor and positions him above the others. Exogenous factor identifies what social level the man occupies: the sort of clinic he visits, consumption of modern well-advertised expensive drugs (Paracetamol in combination with ascorbic acid dragee is rather cheap than the UPSA), frequency of dental visits, etc. It is known that a «Hollywood smile» has become not only a sign, but a symbol. It is a marker of luck, well-being and happiness (in its western mentality and character, i.e. psychic and physical health). TV reports from the USA, Great Britain and other European countries burst with smiling face, since they love smiling and it is of no hazard. But, there are some negative features about this plain mimic expression. American smile plays an important role in the propaganda, persuading the new-comers the idea of a great success and privilege to live in America. Russians have another mentality and tradition. The higher the rank, the more serious face must be. As for the smile, it is a sign of unconcern. In America, smile indicates well-being. If you have nominated your candidate for the election, you are to have a wide, white-teethed smile to show your health, mental balance, money and prosperity, clear conscience.
But there are other modes of consumption within the biomedical model. It is a facilitative mode in interaction. The concept facilitation initialises in a partner way of interaction in the doctor-patient dyad. The inquiry of the medical teaching staff of the Volgograd State Medical University about the way they understand the facilitative or «unobtrusive» mode of doctor’s behaviour, has revealed that the clinicians appeal to the fundamentals of deontology, combination of formal and informal behavioural modes meant for the creation of the doctor’s positive image; professional competence while talking to a patient, as well as optimistic habitus were also noted. Speech arrangement and typical lexical models are of great importance.
Conclusion. Consumption in the medical multicentered mode of sociocultural communication is one of the segments in reality perception that differentiates its participants, but, at the same time, integrates in unbridled stream of a Human Being to cognise the Self.

Arseniy Khitrov: Structure of net communications: remote interlocutor in blogsphere

Arseniy Khitrov
Moscow State University
Department of philosophy,
chair of history and theory of the world culture,
post-graduate student.
State University of Humanities, professor.

Virtual space is becoming a subject matter of linguistic, psychological and media-culture researches. As the realm of online diaries, or blogsphere, is part of virtual space, we can expect that blogsphere has the same properties that virtual space has. John Suler, well-known scientist in psychology of cyberspace, lists specific properties of Internet communication like these: limited sensory experience, anonymity, identity flexibility, equalized statuses, transcended geographical distance, temporal flexibility, social multiplicity, permanent fixation of online activities, feeling of “black hole”[1].
These generalizations may be transformed to ontological postulates. At the same time the agents who operate in cyberspace may also be considered in ontological viewpoint. This approach was used by Eugene Gorny in his article “The ontology of virtual personality”[2]. Many of these properties of cyberspace Gorny attributes to virtual personality. A virtual personality in his conception is incorporeal, anonymous, plural, autonomous, and exists in paradigm of invention itself. Gorny emphasizes that we see it like something composed of signs and acts, in other words like semeiotic constitution. As it is possible to use not only electronic media for transfer of signs, then the properties of virtual personality aren’t concerned with the properties of cybersphere. In this case “it is important the effect that complex of sings makes in the mind but not a nature of media”[3].
This approach lets us to compare virtual personality examined as model with others models of personality in European modern culture. Our thesis is: virtual personality isn’t an extraordinary thing in history of culture. Its basic properties (self-design, incorporeality and plurality) were showing up in philosophy and in literature scores of times. These characteristics reveal ideas dominating in the European modern mentality and now they have new technological capabilities for manifestation.
It seems that it is also important to note one more property of virtual personality – its dialogicality. Author of online diary takes an interest in reaction of remote interlocutor, if we paraphrase the Mandelshtam’s words[4]. These users take an interest in reaction not only of friends but also of Another, of alien consciousness. And that fact that many users locate their profoundly private posts in easy access verifies this idea. Alien consciousness is valuable for me because it makes my consciousness alien for me. An Alien estranges me from me, gives me a chance to take pleasure in my proper profundity and abruptness. Then it recovers me, changed, to me, surprised. A personality constructed by blogs author in not only dialogic but also is auto-dialogic. A net personality is impossible without another net personality. A blogs author addresses to himself, to Alien and to himself as Alien.
At the same time it is interesting to consider net communication as auto-communication par excellence. Thereupon an alien consciousness is producing and constructing by blogs author in himself.
It is obvious that any communication takes place between two interlocutors minimum: between sender of message and its recipient. Situation in which semantic fields coincide partially is ideal for communication. Healthy consciousness has practically complete identity of personality in small period. A consciousness estranges itself in practices of net communication. It passes through active reception of another consciousness and reverts to author as object that doesn’t coincide with content of his consciousness. Consequently net communication is a practice of self-alienation which result is the opportunity to find the Interlocutor in itself.
It is possible to connect the subsequent prospects of studying this problem with complex of phenomena titled “Web 2.0”[5]. The conception of “Web 2.0” was born in answer to problems of “classic” Internet (“Web 1.0”), which is slow-moving, static structure with minimal possibilities of feedback. Dialectic of “Web 1.0” and “Web 2.0” is also dialectic of consumption and communication. A passive consumer of “classic” Internet becomes actively communicating. But forms of network communication are so various that communication becomes action as well.
Constant evolution on Internet calls for permanent giving a more and more precise definition to web ontology. Another important aim is theoretical working up the separate phenomena of network communication not only in the context of natural or technical science but also in the realm of the humanities.

[1] Suler, John, The Basic Psychological Features of Cyberspace, Elements of a Cyberpsychology Model // http://www.rider.edu/suler/psycyber/basicfeat.html%20/ Сулер Дж., 1998, Люди превращаются в Электроников: основные характеристики виртуального пространства // http://flogiston.ru/articles/netpsy/electronic
[2] Горный, Евгений, Онтология виртуальной личности // http://www.zhurnal.ru/staff/gorny/texts/ovr.html
[3] Ibid.
[4] Мандельштам О., 1987, О собеседнике // Мандельштам О., Слово и культура: Статьи. - М.: Советский писатель, с. 48-55.
[5] Тим О'Рейли (Тim O'Reilly), ЧТО ТАКОЕ ВЕБ 2.0. // Компьютерра (Москва), 11.10.2005, C.60-64 // http://www.oreilli.com/pub/a/oreilli/tim/news/2005/09/30/what-is-web-20.html