SPEAKERS I - K

Presents in panel 1G, 2A, 6G, anf 7B

Western Papyrus on the Silk Road and Japanese Pilotage on the Senkaku Maritime Road--- Two Rebuttals Against Chinese Promotions

Hellenistic city-states which were mainly named Alexandria dotted the Hellenistic region. One of the farthest city-states is known today as the Ai-Khanum ruins, located on the northeast border of Afghanistan. The location of Ai-Khanum was the traffic hinge of the Silk Road leading to the Kan (Mandarin pronunciation: han) Kingdom. Parchments and papyrus of 3rd and 2nd centuries BC were excavated within the ruins, on which were written multiple paragraphs in Greek.

About a hundred years after the appearance of the papyrus in Ai-Khanum, Chouken (zhang qian), the ambassador of China around the 2nd century BC, visited Dai-en (dayuan, Fergana Valley) and other regions near Ai-Khanum.

Another hundred years after the travel of Chouken, an ancient paper fragment was unearthed in the Lop Nur area of Uyghur. Experts confirmed that it was a remnant of Chinese papers belonging to the 1st century BC. Whether the paper found at Lop Nur should be considered a Chinese paper or Egyptian papyrus remains a matter of much debate. Chinese papers have been excavated from regions spread over the eastern parts of the Silk Road before Christ.  

The Records of the Grand Historian written by Shibasen (sima qian), the greatest historian of ancient China, describes Parthia Kingdom as follows: "They manufactures silver into coinage, on which is carved the king’s face. The coinage is changed every time a king died, and the face of the new king would be carved. As for the writing method, they inscribe on the leather horizontally."

That the parchments had newly begun to circulate meant that previously the use of traditional papyrus was more common. Chouken recorded parchments because they were quite unusual, whereas papyrus was not recorded by him probably because they were not rare.

Presently, China is promoting the idea that the historical culture of the Belt and Road spread from the East to the West, such as paper, compass, silk, and other characteristic products. However, the total direction of the roads negates this assumption.

China is also promoting the great achievements of Teika (Teiwa, zheng-he), saying that he sailed to Africa by measuring the latitude. But in fact, Teika’s navigational method was recorded only after entering the Indian Ocean. He is likely to have hired Islamic pilots to cross the Indian Ocean. In logic, the nautical method of measuring latitude is also suitable for crossing the East China Sea. However, when Chinese ships crossed eastward to Ryukyu, they always appointed Ryukyuan pilots, who navigated the Senkaku Islands area and arrived at Ryukyu. This shows that China itself did not own the nautical method of measuring latitude, and that the Senkaku Islands did not belong to China.

The Silk Road in the history spread the great civilizations of the western part of Eurasia, such as India, Persia, Islam, and Europe, mainly from west to east. China studied the advanced civilizations of western Eurasia with reverence, indicating that this was the general historical direction of the Silk Road.

Presents in Panel 2B

Digital Inequality in the Russian Provincial Region

The paper presents the results of annual monitoring research conducted since 2014 in a Russian provincial region, and shows the issue of digital inequality, which comes along with inequality in getting knowledge and skills in different social groups (Ragnedda, 2017). New information technologies become one of the most important factors in territories’ development. Areas with poor infrastructure not only drop out of the development process. Quality of life of its population rapidly decrease; people who have higher knowledge and skills capital and who are the richest part of consumers would leave the territory. Digital inequality geographical specificity is analyzed in the case of online and offline shopping predomination in a region. There are all three types of digital inequality in the same areas: inequality in technological access, in knowledge and skills, and in the desire to use them to benefit from online trade. Districts where online trade development compensates for poor development of competition in a real trade, are more developed in terms of technical infrastructure. However, there is tension between social groups who can and want to use online shopping, and who do not want to use it, but cannot rely on real trade, which decreases because of demand reduction. In the areas, the consumer behaviour of one group narrows the choice of others in the real trade. Coexistence of several forms of both online and offline-trade consumer behaviour poses complex tasks of competition development regulation to improve the community’s quality of life. Attitude towards digital inequality as the only technical problem can exacerbate inequality and increase pressure on the real trade markets, especially for vulnerable groups.

This paper is co-authored with Alla Varyzgina and Mikhail Teodorovich

Presents in panel 6E

Presents in Panel 1A and Thursday Roundtable

Presents in panel 1D

ICTs in Authoritarian Legitimation Strategies: A Pilot Empirical Inquiry

Legitimacy seems a vital dimension of authoritarian stability (Gerschewski 2013). Non-democracies develop and combine diverse legitimation strategies (Gershewski 2018; van Soest & Grauvogel 2017), embodied in a variety of tools and institutions. The Internet is said to be one, offering a variety of legitimizing effects (Stier 2017), and legitimation is considered a key motive of technology adoption, especially when it comes to e-government or e-participation instruments (Åström et.al 2012; Maerz 2016): the main discussion is around the referent object of legitimation (external or internal audience), and whether it is related to diffuse or specific legitimacy. Yet, previously no data existed to explore this in detail, and authors would use proxy-variables or in-depth case-studies. The efforts by von Soest, Gerschewski et. al and new V-Dem dataset allow us to address this research gap.

This study is a pilot attempt to explore how the Internet development, the diffusion of online services and participatory tools are related to different legitimation strategies of authoritarian countries. We use data on legitimation strategies (von Soest, C., Grauvogel, J., 2017; Tannenberg 2019) and correlate them with the indicators of the Internet users (World Bank Data), as well as the Online Services Index (OSI) and the E-Participation Index (E-Part) from the UN E-Government Survey. Two databases were compiled: (1) the cross-section dataset, including such legitimation strategies as foundational myth, ideology, personalism, procedures, performance and international engagement, and (2) the panel dataset, covering 2004-2018, including legitimation via ideology, leadership, performance and rational-legal. Both dataset are analyzed using Person correlation analysis.

Though correlation analysis is just the first step, there are several promising findings. Though the Internet diffusion does not have any significant correlation, both OSI and the E-Part are strongly and positively linked with procedures and performance (cross-section data), as well as with rational-legal and performance (panel data). The correlation has been changing overtime: while earlier the relationship was stronger with the procedural legitimation, starting from 2012-2014 it is fading, and performance is becoming more significant. Yet the fluctuation is high, as OSI and E-Part level is due to many factors, the results support an earlier claim that online tools diffusion is legitimation-driven, and concretize this to specific forms of legitimacy. What is also important, no significant correlation was found between ICTs and international legitimation, which might question previous findings (Åström et.al 2012). This initial analysis may be further developed by including legitimation strategies into the authoritarian diffusion models (Ambrosio 2010) of e-government (e-participation) and other relevant ICTs.

Presents in panel 2A
 

Between Humour and Public Commentary: Digital Re-Appropriation of the Soviet Propaganda Posters as Internet Memes

Aim.
The current paper investigates creative re-appropriation of the Soviet propaganda posters as Internet memes. Upon focusing on three iconic posters Did you Volunteer? (1920), Do not Talk! (1941) and Motherland is Calling! (1941), this study examines how the former propaganda images have been transformed by contemporary Russian users into ‘visual templates’ for meme-making.

Background.
Not all Soviet posters transform into Internet memes, as not all of them suit to this purpose. Although over the period from the October Revolution and until the dissolution of the USSR in 1991, the Soviet propaganda machine generated hundreds of posters, today, only a certain number of them are re-appropriated as digital memes. After searching the Russian Web with the use of Yandex web browser, I found that only the three above named images have dozens of ‘memetic’ copies on the Web. These posters differ from others due to a variety of factors, however, what distinguishes them, foremost, is their simple and highly recognisable graphic form. Since the original purpose of these posters was sending an ideological message from the government to the entire Soviet population, they had to be simple and understandable to everyone. This explains todays’ ‘virality’ of these three particular posters that, due to their catchy design, are widely imitated and reproduced in online environment.

Methods.
I consider the basic ‘memetic’ qualities of the Soviet propaganda posters, whereupon I proceed to analysis of their functioning on the Russian Internet. Particularly, I identify the two functions of memes based on the Soviet propaganda posters: first, as a form of a peculiar humour, known in Russian tradition as stiob, and, second, as an instrument for voicing of public opinion, through which users comment on urgent political and social issues.

Findings.
What distinguishes all absurd transformations of Soviet propaganda posters from other digital memes, is a specific type of humour that does not fit any conventional definitions of irony, sarcasm, satire, or even black humour. Although in the English-speaking tradition this ‘humorous’ subgenre is relatively unheard of, it is widely known in Russian culture under the name of stiob. Today digital imitations of the Soviet propaganda posters continue the old yet still relevant tradition of absurd laughter that was initiated by Soviet intellectuals in the 1980s.
Yet, while often having a humorous undertone, memes of the Soviet propaganda posters fulfil another function, apart from pure humour. Paradoxically, the ironic nature of these transformed images allows using them also for ‘serious’ purposes, such as commenting on current political agenda, discussing hot topics of public debate and generally expressing one’s view about ‘how the world should look and the best way to get there’.

Conclusion.
When employed in new digital contexts, the Soviet wartime propaganda posters acquire a range of brand new connotations. Whilst their original historical meaning is lost, they turn into ‘visual templates’ that can fit any new purpose. In this way, drawing images of the past online is not meant to represent history, but the Soviet iconography is evoked for other goals: to argue about Russia’s present, to establish one’s virtual identity, or just for ironic postmodern play of signifiers.

Presents in panel 3C

Digital Discourses of the ‘New Cold War’: Russian Online Trolling and Network Propaganda in the Frode Berg Spy Case

The study is a pilot for the larger project Digital disruptive discourse and the diaspora, which aims to map semiotic (meaning– and sense-making) dimensions of Russian online trolling through the lens of compatriots abroad. The pilot looks at two online news platforms popular among the Russian diaspora but labelled ‘propagandist’ by several Western actors — InoSMI and RT. By analysing commentary on news stories about Russia’s espionage prosecution of Norwegian citizen Frode Berg, the study provides a mixed-methods approach to the concept of ‘network propaganda’ in a Russian-Norwegian context.

Presents in poster session

Professor, Director of the Aleksanteri Institute

Presents in the Opening Ceremony

Changing the Image of a Politician Under the Influence of a “Conservative Backlash” of Gender Order on the Example of the Chairman of the Council of the Federation of the Federal Assembly of the Russian Federation - Valentina Matvienko

Objective: to show how the image of politics changes the reality surrounding it.

Background: term paper on the theme of the “Image of a woman-politician in Russia at the present time”
Methods: qualitative method includes viewing transcripts, analyzing reviews on social networks about the work of a politician, analyzing articles and interviews related to the work of Valentina Matvienko. Quantitative method in the consideration of how many times Valentina Matvienko was mentioned in social networks, in what way, what were the key words. The study was conducted from the beginning of the career of Valentina Matvienko to the present day.

Findings: Valentina Matvienko is one of the most influential figures in Russian politics, but stubbornly associated in people's minds with femininity and gentleness. The image is organically adjusted to the changing rhetoric of the state. From the liberal, which included pleas of a feminist, to the one that the woman must be wife in the first place. This was primarily influenced by a conservative backlash. In public space, she still supports women, but with some reservations about family. It is not verbose with the press, statements are presented on press releases and other official events. In this, Valentina Matvienko looks like President of the Russian Federation Vladimir Putin. She does not act with her position, only expresses the will of the Federation Council.

Conclusion: Having examined one politician, another woman, one can clearly see how Russia was entering into a conservative turn further and further, and having considered the big picture, it becomes clear why this happened. For further research, the question will be considered whether the civil servant herself decided to conduct conservative rhetoric, or only adjusted to the changing political climate. At the moment, there are statements by anonymous sources about the possible dismissal of the chairperson from her post, and this may indicate a possible turn for Valentina Matvienko as a politician. The reason for the possible change may be either her age (70 years) or a conservative backlash, displacing not so many women in Russian politics.

Presents in poster session

Presents in panel 2G and 7C (paper co-authored with Aleksandra Burdyak and a second paper co-authored with Ulla Pape)

Islamic Education in Russian Dagestan: From Reading the Quran to Internet Communications

The report will provide an analysis of empirical material collected during a field expedition to the Republic of Dagestan. The main focus of the study is to analyze the structure and capabilities of modern Islamic education in Russia (using the example of the North Caucasus region of Dagestan) and to identify the role of Internet communications in spreading knowledge about Islam among students. Communication in the Internet inevitably involves a dialogue when the reader enters the role of the author, leaving notes and comments in posts. Internet communication in this case performs the function of the media, and the emerging virtual communities within social networks provide continuous communication. Now everyone can communicate with a large number of users of virtual social networks by engaging in open discussions on religious topics, including on the issue of Islam and Islamic education.

Presents in poster session

Music Rights Enforcement and Emerging Technology in Caucasus Region

We expect new approaches presented in the paper to invoke deeper discussion on how current global technological development in Copyright Law affects on regional market and society and in which ways the Caucasus Region could play an important role in international music industry. Innovative technologies have greatly changed our world, hence, Law and enforcement practice need to keep along. Unsatisfactory Copyright enforcement and, as a result, loss of incentives for creative activity could be prevented by developing law and enforcement practices by implementing advanced technology that would contribute to balance of interests of right holders and a wider society.

It has never been so easy to produce and disseminate any copy of copyrighted work, especially musical and audiovisual works. Digitization has seemingly increased the number of copyright violations and made IP rights enforcement more complex. Technology that has been effectuated so far is criticized for its ineffectiveness. Despite this, neither academic society, nor practitioners of the region have elaborated on it comprehensively.

In the descriptive part of the paper, we introduce most recent perspectives, collected by surveying the world’s leading professionals working in the music industry, on utilizing technologies in Copyright law enforcement in Caucasus Region. On the basis of case study and comparative research, we describe and correlate emerging technologies of monitoring usage of music and audiovisual work in the region, analyze essential interactions between local and international music industry, suggest several means of enacting technologies in Intellectual Property Law and its advantageous possible social, cultural and economical impact on the market and the society.

The paper seeks to answer the major questions: how do music companies in Caucasus Region keep up with drastically changed digital environment to monitor music usage with the technology that has been implemented so far? How did inefficiency of technology become a tool for manipulation on the local market and the society in Georgia? The challenge is that the innovative technology has to enable Collective Management Organizations, Music Publishers and Record Labels to satisfy cultural needs by fair distribution of income to content creators and increasing efficiency of their operations by adapting to global digital market. The paper reveals inevitability of implementing new technology in order for music companies to work more efficiently. Efficient work itself is a key factor for getting the regional market available enough to become a significant actor of the global music industry.

It is hoped this research will be helpful for practitioners working in the music industry, businesses searching for investing opportunities and for any person interested in music rights enforcement in Caucasus Region to get exposed to its current context and technological challenges.

This paper is co-authored with Gvantsa Baidoshvili

Presents in panel 3C

Presents in panel 5F

This paper is co-authored with Anna Altukhova

Presents in Panel 1A

Presents in Panel 1A (paper co-authored with Meri Kulmala ) and 7A

Adult Lifelong Learning in Knowledge-Intensive Enterprises

Considered exploring current practices of the interaction between continuing education institutes (including supplementary education) and science intensive enterprises or companies, on the one hand. The specific character of this problem also lies in the fact, that modern science intensive technologies (they must be closely connected with progressive developing of Russian economics and society) fundamentally differ from traditional industrial technologies. First of all, it refers to the interaction sphere of education, science and enterprises of a real sphere of economy. This connection with the sphere of high technologies is a poorly investigated problem.

Interest of article consists in the fact, that different types of interaction between business organizations of the real economy, high-tech enterprises, continuing education and science institutes was explored by methods of the applied sociology and the interdisciplinary analysis in the process of working out and application of modern innovative science intensive technologies. During analyzing Russian innovations we will focus on the sphere of high technologies, since the application of these converging technologies is becoming a main element of the innovation cluster cooperation of high-tech enterprises. At the same time the continuing education as the concept and the element of a corporate as well as a state policy, is regarded as one of the most important element of the cluster interaction between innovation's actors for the first time.

There are 100 expert semi-structured interviews were conducted in 2015-2018 in different regions of Russia in this study. The design of the sample included heads of knowledge-intensive enterprises, heads of educational institutions, members of innovation clusters, government employees and venture investors.

The role of lifelong learning in the development of innovation processes becomes major because there appears a need for regular training of staff and improvement of their skills, based on the needs of industries. The system of higher professional education doesn’t feet the requirements of the modern market. Lifelong learning is realized in the form of additional professional education as corporate education and training of personnel “on the side” (for example, trainings).

The role of corporate universities that is realized with the participation of companies is becoming more noticeable and operate as one of the divisions of a company.

This paper is co-authored with Anna Chursina

Presents in Panel 1E

Presents in panle 1C

Presents ib panel 4C

Russian Orthodox Church and Digitalization: The Argument of the Orthodox Conservators Against Information Technologies and Electronic Means of Personal Data Control

It is no secret that for more than 20 years Orthodox believers in Russia have expressed serious concern and protests against the implementation of new electronic technologies. The rise of such protests occurred in the late 90's, when many priests began to oppose the accepting value added tax identification numbers (VATIN). Then the Orthodox used almost exclusively religious argumentation, pointing to "666" as the key symbolic meaning of the electronic encoding in VATIN – "Antichrist's seal", "the number of the beast" in accordance with the wide-spread interpretation the Revelation of John the theologian (Apoc, 13:18). This view was clothed in numerous conspiracy theories. In response to the protests, the Church authorities had to give explanations, for example in the Final document of the VII plenary session of the Synodal Theological Commission of the Russian Orthodox Church (ROC) in 2001, the Statement of the Holy Synod in 2005, the definition of the bishops ' Council 2008, 2011 and 2013. The ROC also addressed with these concern to the Russian government, in particular to the president.

A criticism of Orthodox groups protesting the new digital technologies was evolving during 20 years, while replacing a religious arguments for the secular ones. In particular they started to speak on the danger of "digital dictatorship" or even "electronic concentration camp" with regard to further development of digitalization
Today in Russia there is a new rise of protests by Orthodox believers in connection with the implementation of biometric identification technologies and the legalization of Individual insurance account number (SNILS) as a mandatory single unique digital identity in all respects of the citizen with the authorities and commercial structures.

In contrast to the protests of the late 90s and early 2000s, Orthodox believers, in addition to purely religious conspiracy arguments, appeal to the RF Constitution, respect for human rights, talk about the danger of dictatorship, abuse of information by the government, health and educational institutions, business and the banking system.

The purpose of this paper is to clarify what are the main trends in Russian Orthodoxy of counter-documentation against the digitalization, and what ideas and institutions support these arguments. What objections continue to develop conspiracy ideas, and which master the human rights argument? To what extent is this rejection conditioned by ideological motives, political preferences or social inequality? How does the rhetoric of Orthodox fundamentalists reflect the concerns expressed by secular analysts (Bowles, 2019), (Khalin & Chernova, 2018), (Lanier, 2013), (Richards, 2013)? What is the position of the authorities in relation to new information technologies? How can we talk about the influence of the position of the ROC on the adoption of further steps regarding digitalization by the state? While scrutinizing conspiracy of the Orthodox groups, the authors rely on methods and approaches developed by analysts such as M. Barkun (2003), A.Panchenko (2015), Zh.Kormina (2015).

This paper is co-authored with Anna Murashova

Presents in panel 3E

Key Players, Internet Technologies and Practices of Communication in the Election Campaign (The Case of ST. Petersburg)

The report examines the evolution of political technologies in the post-Soviet period. The focus is on the transformation of practices of communication between the voter and the candidate. The empirical basis was the participant observation of the election campaign of 2016, as a result of which the federal and regional parliaments were formed, and the interviews. A special focus of the study is to identify the role of Internet technologies in election campaigns of political parties (blogs, social networks, digital geography, mobile marketing and advertising in computer games).

Presents in poster session

Presents in panel 3F and 6E

Vkontakte Users’ Social Capital: The Role of Privacy Concerns, Propensity to Make Connection and Access to Online Communities

Social network sites (SNSs) are playing an increasingly important role in interpersonal relationship building and maintenance, including the formation of social capital. Social capital, broadly understood as access to and use of social ties that help achieve specific goals, is associated with a multitude of factors. Knowledge of those factors can help us understand why some individuals are more successful in accumulating social capital than others. In Russia, where formal social institutions are not as developed as in some of the “Western” societies, interpersonal ties are especially important for individual life chances.

However, there are still many gaps in the knowledge on mechanisms connecting SNS user practices and social capital. First, most online studies have been bound to ego-network research. Second, the existing research has mostly employed self-reported data on online social capital, which has its strengths, but also limitations. Third, some obvious potential determinants of social capital have been omitted or under-researched; they include propensity to make connections and the goals of the SNS use, privacy concerns that are increasingly important after a series of scandals related to personal SNS data, and such features as access to diverse online communities.

This study aims to overcome the listed above limitations. Our goal is to figure out what types of SNS user behaviors contribute most to the increase of users’ social capital in a location-bounded online network. To reach this goal, we use the data from VK (VKontakte, http://vk.com) – the largest Russian-speaking social network site. We collect rich observational data consisting of 194,601 user accounts and 9,800,107 friendship ties that represent the full SNS network of a typical middle-size Russian city of Vologda. We then collect self-reported data from a sub-sample of Vologda network (N=375 which roughly corresponds to the margin of error of 5%). While the large sample allows us to model observable social capital, the small sample provides a possibility to model both observed and self-reported social capital.

We find out that the city network is both clustered and highly centralized which suggests the presence of an hierarchical structure: a set of sub-communities united by city-level hubs. Against this background, we find out that multiple group membership – even if they are not city-specific – is positively related to global brokerage and eigenvector centrality, and so is the share of local friends and a number of other factors. In the small sample, we find that relationship maintenance behavior mediates the influence of propensity to make connections on the self-reported social capital, while privacy concerns play no role. We thus confirm the well—known privacy paradox and the importance of brokerage, as well as bring the research that was previously done only in the Western context into a post-Soviet country.

This paper is co-authored with Yadviga Sinyavskaya, Alexander Porshnev, and Yuri Rykov

Agenda divergence in a developing conflict: Quantitative evidence from Ukrainian and Russian TV newsfeeds

Although conflict representation in media has been widely studied, few attempts have been made to perform large-scale comparisons of agendas in the media of conflicting parties, especially for armed country-level confrontations. In this article, we introduce quantitative evidence of agenda divergence between the media of conflicting parties in the course of the Ukrainian crisis 2013–2014.

Using 45,000 messages from the online newsfeeds of a Russian and a Ukrainian TV channel, we perform topic modelling coupled with qualitative analysis to reveal crisis-related topics, assess their salience and map evolution of attention of both channels to each of those topics. Until recently, it was a challenge to study media agendas and their change on a large scale as the only method available was manual content analysis that is prone to subjectivity. However, benefiting from the new techniques of automatic text analysis, we use an algorithm of topic modelling that lets us define an agenda objectively, through a loose set of the most typical words, and to perform co-clustering of both most probable words and texts without any prior human preconceptions.

With this approach, we not only retrieve media agendas from two large collections of news texts but also measure their salience and quantitatively assess their distribution over channels at different stages of the conflict. We demonstrate quantitatively that the difference between the two channels in the salience of crisis-related topics grows with time. Additional qualitative analysis reveals increasing differences in framing. Our approach allows us to illustrate a process in which a conflict contributes to step-by-step transformation of a former single media space into two country-level echo chambers that may amplify this conflict and make it irreversible. The offered methodological approach is of visible importance for conflict coverage studies, going far beyond the Ukrainian crisis, as researchers, too, in their attempts to capture agenda change, may find it difficult to break through echo chambers they may be trapped in.

We not only confirm that conflict coverage by the conflicting parties is inverse and aligned with the interests of those parties but we also show that, as the conflict develops, the agendas of the conflicting parties diverge, polarization in framing increases and the alignment takes different forms. Proceeding from the Ukrainian case, we can suggest a typology of stages of conflict media coverage, based on the general theory of conflict stages.

This paper is co-authored with Sergei Pashakhin

Presents in panel 3D and 5E

Presents in panel 5D

How Information Systems Change the Technology of Working with Historical Data

Information systems to support historical researches become today are the main resources of the digital environment of historical science. It seems that the advantage and one of the main reasons for the prevalence of this type of resource are that such information systems change the technology of working with historical data.
The purpose of the present report is to show how the application of information systems changes the technologies of organization of historical information and work with data.

To achieve the goal the information systems created and used in the DH center of Perm University from 2003 up to nowadays were analyzed. They are devoted to researching and educational purposes of the problems of the history of the Zemstvo Government, Parliamentary history, history of provincial periodicals, newspaper, history of cartography and cartographers in the Urals, preservation and study of historical and cultural heritage, methodology, theory and practice of creation and usage of historical information systems. There are about 20 systems; most of them are currently available on the Internet (http://dh.psu.ru/projects).

The analysis of creation and application of information systems for researching of sources on the history of Zemstvo self-government, provincial newspaper periodicals, structure, socio-cultural aspects and activity of Deputy Corps and subelites of the State Duma and The State Council of pre-revolutionary Russia and other problems of parliamentary history shows the following.

Application of systems means the transition to new digital technologies of organization and structuring of historical information – database technologies of languages of deep markup of texts of XML. This organization of data, as well as database tools, allow to use for data processing technologies of search and analytical queries, to receive from arrays of information various samples and groupings of data in the content and numerical views. The received data are saved as text cases and sub hulls, transformed in quantitative values and organized in tabular forms. For their analysis and visualization, it becomes possible to apply linguistic methods and technologies, methods and technologies of mathematical-statistical modeling. Integration into information systems of special applications (e.g., for example, “Prosopography Research” tool on http://parliament.psu.ru or search applications on http://permnewspapers.ru/poisk and http://digitalhistory.ru/katalog-sistem/poisk-po-sistemam) considerably expands the possibilities of application of new digital technologies. Thus, in the study based on relevant information systems, the above-mentioned topics were used database technologies and deep markup of XML text, content analysis, cognitive mapping, network analysis and modeling, statistical modeling, computerized prosopography research, spatial visualization and analysis, and others. The detailed application of these technologies and its results are reflected in numerous publications of the authors (http://dh.psu.ru/publications).
Thus, historical research based on information systems in comparison with traditional researches objectively leads to significant changes in technologies of work with historical information. They allow more efficiently organize and treat data sources, more fully disclose their information potential, and receive more informed and new results. Changes in technology expand the possibilities of interdisciplinary use of historical information systems, not only for humanitarian research but also for natural science.

This paper is co-authoered with Dinara Gagarina

Presents in panel 4G

Presents in panel 4C

Presents in panel 2F

Educating Young Technological Entrepreneur in the Epoch of Disruptive Innovations

This paper is aimed to describe the peculiarities of education of young technological entrepreneurs on the example of the university environment of Russia.

Background: Under the conditions of globalization, the governments of countries are directing their efforts towards the formation of sustainable competitive advantages of the national economies of their countries. In this regard, innovations, new technologies play an important role providing a breakthrough in the strategic development of the country. Over the past decade, the Russian government has introduced a number of legislative initiatives to support the environment for the creation of innovations, new technologies.

However, existing studies of technological entrepreneurship do not reveal the diversity of trends and organizational forms of technological entrepreneurship, as sources of the formation of young technological entrepreneurs who are ready to create disruptive innovations that can predict the needs of the innovation market.

So, the systematization of the typology of youth technology entrepreneurship is needed.
Methods: The qualitative modeling was used to identify the organizational forms of technological entrepreneurship in leading universities in Russia.

Findings: The main directions of youth technology entrepreneurship were identified according to the results of the process of describing the circle of participants involved in the development of youth technology entrepreneurship in the Russian Federation.

Directions are divided into 5 groups.

The first group includes tools to support youth technology entrepreneurship, which, in turn, is divided into two subgroups: public relations and financing. The second group as education is divided into 3 subgroups: pre-university, university and postgraduate. The third group includes external counseling and internal university counseling. The fourth group is aimed at developing technologies in three formats: technology transfer, commercialization of research results and R&D, inventions and discoveries by scientists, teachers, graduate students and university students and their implementation into production. The latter group is purposed at creating an effective ecosystem of technological entrepreneurship and is divided into 4 subgroups: university development, creating a platform for the community, ensuring the effectiveness of technological entrepreneurship and cooperation.

According to the results of the data analysis, the scope of consideration of the umbrella term “technological entrepreneurship” was expanded in connection with the diversity of areas and organizational forms of its manifestation.

Conclusion:
In the districts / regions / cities in which there are traditionally strong participants with a history of technology development (availability of scientific schools, number of inventions and patents, number of scientific publications, media representation, number of inventions implemented into production, cooperation programs with industrial businesses structures, government institutions) currently play a key role in the development of technological entrepreneurship.

The availability of funding in an organization is not a key factor for participation in technology entrepreneurship, but the decisive role is played by employees who have experience in this field and have the competence to promote this area.

In the short and long term, universities/ educational organizations with highly professional employees who are able to build flexible models of interaction with structures / organizations will be drivers for the formation and development of technological entrepreneurship base.

This paper is co-authored with Paweł Lula

Presents in panel 6F

On-Line Practices About Reproductive Health Around Zachatievsky Monastery

The presentation tells about the special practices that have arisen around Zachatievsky Monastery in Moscow (the name literally means Conceiving Monastery) among women with problems in the reproductive sphere. The monastery is part of the Moscow urban narrative of «places that helps to get pregnant». Usually, childless couples, after an unsuccessful attempt to have a child, try to use not only medical methods but also magical practices. Such practices usually accompanied by a set of narratives about successful attempts to get pregnant. In the case of the Zachatievsky monastery, a group of people with special problems is not formed around a real cult object. They are not usual parishioner in the monastery, do not visit the usual worships and do not have communion there. Their communication, support, creation of new practices take place on the basis of an online forum.

It seems that today Internet users have fewer communications on forums However, for some cases of Russian-speaking users, forums remain the main platform. The sphere of health and especially reproductive health is one of them. Advantage of this form of Internet communication is a better opportunity to find information about hospitals, treatment methods, and doctors. At the same time, religious and magical practices become a part of the consideration of users. Childbirth is a medical sphere where sometimes success depends on chance and users try to attract еру luck and share it with each other.

The study was conducted on the basis of texts found on the website babyblog.ru – one of the biggest internet forums for parents. The set of ritual practices around Zachatievsky Monastery was found among the user of this forum.

We made a discourse analysis of text published on the forum about the Monastery from 2008 till 2019 years and made a corpus of narratives and practices which changed chronologically and depending on the situation of the woman (for example, in the case of natural or artificial conception). Users of the forum are very involved to each other’s situation helps to each other not only in advice but using special forms of help: praying in the Monastery for women who live far from Moscow, buying and sending religious objects to each other. Moreover, we made a field observation during the weekly worships about reproductive health in the Monastery to see how online-community manifests itself in real life.

The theoretical framework of the study is based on the symbolic theory of Emile Durkheim, in the most complete form proposed by him in "Elementary Forms ...", as well as on the subsequent development of this tradition in the cultural sociological project of Jeffrey Alexander. Durkheim interprets the symbol, on the one hand, as a metaphor of society, on the other, as a subject of the material world, participating in a religious ritual along with the actors and in a certain sense having its own agency. The symbolic thing, acquiring a dual nature, begins to frame the community according to this duality.

Presents in panel 3B

Presents in panel 7C

Closed, Safe and Secure: The Russian Sense of Information Security

Security is a feeling that varies from culture to culture and it is sometimes specific to each individual society. Likewise, cybersecurity experienced within one state can radically differ from the cybersecurity experienced within another. In the Russian approach, cyber/information space is used by 'other countries' and hostile forces for the destabilization of Russia. The Internet is a by-product of the dominant American culture and therefore, poses a threat to Russian cultural integrity and independence. 'RuNet' (from words "Russian Internet") as an alternative and familiar Russian language platform has been gradually developing from the bottom-up to challenge the English language dominated Internet. Later, the Russian government began to plan top-to-bottom approach for technical disconnecting of the 'Russian segment of the Internet' from global Internet. It is clear that Russian approach to cybersecurity differs fundamentally from the 'Western' understanding of cybersecurity that is based on global and open Internet. This paper discusses how the Russian sense of information security is merging and fulfilling both, the people's and state's security needs.

The methodology of this paper draws on integrated approach. On one hand, a dialectic method is applied to demonstrate the duality between 'RuNet' and 'the Russian segment of the Internet' and to investigate the synthesis of these two diverse approaches and how in this process the Russian sense of security is developing, merging and fulfilling the people's and state's security needs. On the other hand, cross-cultural research and sociological perspectives are required to understand different national security solutions, human behaviour and decision-making in the field of cybersecurity. A sociocultural perspective is applied to describe the historical, social and cultural factors surrounding Russian cyber/information space and to show through examples how the Russian sense of information security is constructed. Cross-cultural research requires conceptual synchronization and understanding the cultural variation of the 'sense of security'. Thus, firstly, the key concepts are introduced and a dialectic method is used to explain their differences. Secondly, a sociocultural review and analysis as a theoretical framework and methodology is described. Thirdly, in the analytical part of this paper it is shown how the sense of Russian information security is provided through historical fear-based template for the isolation rhetoric, awarding and celebrating the 'Russian way' of doing things and by cleaning together for a safer environment. Fourthly, the Russian understanding of information security is examined through the state project to control of 'the national segment of Internet'. And finally, this paper discusses how the Russian sense of information security is verified by the state.

This paper is co-authored with Mari Ristolainen

Presents in panel 7E

This paper is co-authored with Anna Klimova 

Presents in panel 1A and 2G

Digital Environmental Visions: Will Digital Technologies Save Russia (And the Planet)?

Aim: Exploratory in its nature, the paper will aim to offer an initial mapping and categorisation of the ways digital technologies are envisioned in current Russian environmental policies and projects: as tools for monitoring natural resources, flows of energy, or waste; as a technology of sustainable production; as a communication platform for environmental agendas; or as a system of data governance. The paper will further aim to map which technologies are mobilised under the current turn to digitisation: sensors and smart devices; grids; Big Data etc.

Background: The paper is part of a larger, ongoing project, “Politics, geographies and silences of digital harms: digitisation and environmental projects in Russia”, which aims to explore the role of digitisation, dataisation and digital communication technologies in the context of the Russian environment, and environmentally oriented policies, initiatives and imaginaries. At the heart of the project is the following question: how to reconcile the usefulness of digitisation and its rapid and expansive adoption into environmental policies and sustainability projects, with the extensive environmental damages, brought on by the digitisation itself? Those damages include the ever-growing extraction of resources needed to produce digital devices; the toxicity of e-waste; and the rapidly increasing energy demands of data centres, needed to sustain every click, website, database or “smart” networks.

Method: For the purpose of this presentation, I will focus specifically on what I call “digital environmental visions”. Overviewing a sample of policy narratives and initiatives that put digital tools to serve the environment (for example, environmental management of smart cities), the paper will discuss the role digital technologies are expected to play in protecting the environment, while also offering a socio-cultural analysis of what is currently rendered “environmental concerns”.

Findings: The mapping and categorisation will be examined in comparison to similar developments in other digital economies. I will look at whether and to what extent Russia’s current socio-economic turn towards the “digital transformation” (World Bank Group, 2018) follows similar developments in other countries, where digitisation has become the key grammar of environmental and sustainability policies and practices, paradoxically and stubbornly downplaying the environmental damages, inflicted by the very same digitisation.

Conclusion/ recommendations: Interdisciplinary in its methodological and theoretical framing, the paper will conclude by arguing that in order to understand current paradoxes of digital environmental visions, one must put into conversation media and communication studies, digital sociology, cultural studies of policy and critical infrastructure studies.

Presents in panel 6A

Presents in panel 7A