INTERNATIONAL JOURNAL OF CULTURAL RESEARCH

Mikhail STEPANOV

Acting Head of the Department of Advertising and Public Relations at the Institute of Business Communications
Staint-Petersburg State University of Industrial Technology and Design, Russia
Associate Professor, PhD in Philosophy
D.S.Likhachev Russian Institute of Cultural and Natural Heritage, Russia
Senior Researcher of the Center for Fundamental Research of Culture

Communicology of Vilém Flusser: Between Media and Message

The focus of this article is the problematic field of modern communications. The fact that differences in communicative practices mark the diversity of cultures is doubt. Together with Vilem Flusser, we can say that the problem of communication is an essential problem of human being. Today, communication aspects of life are affected both in the humanities, such as philosophy, cultural studies, sociology, psychology, and in various applied researches – advertising, public relations, marketing, journalism, political science. Vilem Flusser's project of «communicology» is the creation of communication science such as biology and technology. The main goal is to imply the development of a whole communication logic that would unite all the aspects of the phenomenon of communication. In fact, Flusser in the late 1980s, planned to complete the epistemological codification of the world, combining human, nature and culture in the phenomenon of communication. Meanwhile, in the present one can observe the opposite situation: the specification and the identification of differences in communicative models, practices and technologies in accordance with the social context, breed disciplinary fields.

Key words: сommunicology, Vilém Flusser, media, message, communication.

References

Yulia ARTAMONOVA

Lomonosov Moscow State University, Moscow, Russia
Faculty of Political Science, Department of History and Theory of Politics
PhD in Philosophy, Associate Professor

Context, Ideality, Gesture: three Historical Models of Communication

The article analyses three models of communication – face-to-face interaction, the culture of written literary text, gestures. It demonstrates that the notions (concepts) that were developed within analysis of semiosis and hermeneutics of text belong to different basic models of communication – face-to-face interaction and the culture of written literary text. The semiosis model oriented at face-to-face interaction presumes initially common context of dialogue and action, common reality in a literal sense. The concept of “sense” (key concept for hermeneutics of text) relies upon “ideality” of literary text, therefore the possibility of the unity of interpretations, sustainability of the sense transmission and notional (and other) text coherence are presumed. That’s what allows to consider the situation of communication and its participants as introducing distortions to be overcome.
Both models are essentially different and irreducible one to another. The specificity of contemporary model of communication appears in gesture, the insufficiency of both conceptual frameworks for analysis of contemporary communication is demonstrated.

Key words: communication, context, sense, ideality, intention, scheme, semiosis, sign, gesture, medaility.

References

Oleg ASTAKHOV

Kemerovo State Institute of Culture, Russia
PhD of Cultural Studies, Professor of the Department of Cultural Studies

Oksana RTISHCHEVA

Kemerovo State Institute of Culture, Russia
Director of the Institute of Social and Humanities Studies
PhD in Philosophy, Associate Professor

Subject Content of Communication Processes in Modern Culture

The article considers the communicating processes in the aspect of realizing the subject aims connected with updating a pragmatic goal-setting. It is caused by promoting the functional and role model of communication directed to establish accurate, clear and concrete forms of communication, and appeal of such characteristics of the modern personality as practicality, focus on usefulness of a thought and action. Therefore the position of the subject is accepted as the basis for creating communication processes that stated the importance of the subject values, generating a play of interpretative values in determination of the sense forming principles in culture. And a striking example to that is the wide network of different trainings focused on developing opportunities for influence on audience to achieve the pragmatic purposes necessary for the solution of private questions. For example, the trainings of R. Gandapas, the famous business coach in Russia on leadership and oratory, focus to overcome the barriers in communication. He actualizes the role of a leading subject in achieving the goals that is the main principle of communicating processes. However consideration of barriers in communication processes can have other value which is already connected not with a problem of their overcoming, but with self-identification in culture promoting to fix the mental abilities of consciousness. And in this case the solution of questions for self- identification in culture considering the implementation of the internal cultural content becomes the most important communicating task.

Key words: communicating process, communication subject, communication barriers, communication aim, communication function and dysfunction, manipulation, pragmatics, self-identification.

References

Nikolai KHRENOV

Chief Researcher of the State Institute of Art Studies of the Ministry of Culture of the Russian Federation
Professor of the Chair of Aesthetics, History and Theory of Culture at Russian State University of Cinematography named. S. A. Gerasimov
Doctor of Philosophy

Mass Communication from the Perspective of Virtual Reality

The Subject of this article is virtual reality. In the field of his attention – audiovisual media (photography, cinema, television, Internet). Disagreeing with the view that virtual reality began with the Internet, the author tries to present audio-visual means of mass communication phases in the development of virtual reality. Criticizing the consideration of the virtual reality only as a technological phenomenon, the author raises the question about the need to identify in this reality, anthropological, aesthetic and cultural aspects.

Key words: virtual reality, the technological aspect, anthropological, aesthetic aspect, photography, cinema, television, Internet, mass communication, history, prehistory, sensual experience, organoprotective, culture, civilization, games field, the project of modernity, rehabilitation, sensory experience, symbolic forms, mythological forms, the transcendental sense.

References

Ekaterina ANANIEVA

Saint-Petersburg State University, Russia
Institute of Philosophy, Department of Philosophical Anthropology
PhD in Philosophy, Senior Lecturer

Investigation Program of the Theory of Intercultural Communication and Limits of its Implementation

Theoretical investigation program of intercultural communication keeps rising polemics on concept of culture interpreted as the system of norms and values and based on appropriate philosophical reasons.
In the research approach sustained by intercultural communication's founders, accent is made on generalization of empirical observation on cultures, and not on the deduction of cultural categories from philosophical basis. The article tries to apply the same polemical way to this theoretical approach by representing arguments developed during modern discussions about intercultural communication. The emphasis is focused on polemics around singularity and plurality of cultural “languages” as well as on borders of suggested cultural differences.

Key words: intercultural communication, philosophy of culture, hermeneutic, cultural anthropology.

References

Elena KAVERINA

Saint-Petersburg State University, Russia
The School of Journalism and Mass Communications, The Department of Advertising 
PhD in Philosophy, Associate Professor

Event Communication in the Coordinates of the Contemporaneity

The article is devoted to understanding the specific forms of event communication in the cultural space of the XXI century. Event communication is a form of social and cultural communication, where the main method and form of interaction is symbolically built action (named to modern culture «special event»). Event communication are implemented in diverse forms of symbolic action. The architectonics of symbolic actions is changing, following the changes of the world picture of the era. The Foundation of the event communications comes back into the bowels of human culture, based on extensive experience of the ritual and ceremonial practices. Today, special events are one of the most relevant technologies to marketing communications, knowingly used a communication tool to achieve a variety of corporate and individual goals. Creating events is becoming one of the industries of modern culture. Modern forms of event communication demonstrate digital, gaming, performance character, become one of the main languages of communication in the XXI century.

Key words: event communication, special events, event marketing, marketing communications, corporate communications, festivals, rituals, traditions, media, digital communications, postmodern.

References

Natalia FEDOTOVA

Yaroslav-the-Wise Novgorod State University, Veliky Novgorod, Russia
Associate Professor of the Department of Theory History and Philosophy of Culture
PhD in Philosophy

The Role of Media Communications in the Formation of the Symbolic Capital of a Place

In the global competition of cities and regions for social, creative, and economic resources the cultural area becomes a key source of symbolic representation of the uniqueness of local places. In this regard, cultural practices are increasingly understood in the context of the symbolic capital of the place that may bring a profit to the territory in forms of brand awareness, fame, prestige, and credibility by different social groups. The article explains the importance of media communications in the process of accumulation of the symbolic capital. The author reveals the role of media in the symbolic production of territorial imagery, shows some features of the empirical analysis of the symbolic capital of the place, displays the media trajectory of capital growth, - that allows to use this knowledge in the development strategies of Russian territories.

Key words: media, culture, media communication, media discourse, symbolic capital of places, symbolic capital of territory, image of place.

References

Natalia SAZONOVA

Tomsk State Pedagogical University, Tomsk, Russia
Department of Russian History and Methodology of Teaching History and Social Science
Professor, Doctor of Sciences (Philosophy), Chair

The Phenomenon of Visualization in Culture: the Problem of the Origin and Development

The article analyzes the problem of the emergence of the phenomenon of the visualization process which begins in the traditional culture. Article examines the cultural implications of visually perceived text on example of Russian culture of the X-XVII centuries – writing, the specifics of the production and comprehension of oral and written discourse: features associated with the difference between the speed of writing and speech, the problem of the relationship of the addresser and the addressee of the text, and in general, the specifics of culture with a predominance of the spoken word and culture with priority of the written text.
Article shows on the example of Russian culture the reasons for the development of the visualisation process, beginning with the adoption of Christianity, and analyzes the main features of the visualization process in the Russian culture of the X-XVII centuries associated with the transition state of culture, when a written text is considered by the culture as a priority, but also takes the corresponding place in the culture, the gradual increase of the role of written text, and finally the formation of stable representations of visually perceived text as a separate phenomenon, isolated from the cultural context.

Key words: : visualization, oral discourse, written discourse, Russian culture, Christianity, Christianization, literacy, literacy, correction of books of the liturgical reform of Patriarch Nikon.

References

Inna KALITA

Jan Evangelista Purkyně University, Usti nad Labem, Czech Republic
Department of Czech Studies, Pedagogical Faculty
PhD in Philology, Researcher

«One’s Own – Someone Else’s» in Coordinates of Idiomatic Stereotypes

The article introduces an analysis of paradigm «one’s own – someone else’» through phraseology prism in four Slavic languages – Russian, Belarusian, Ukrainian and Czech. Main goal – comparative analysis of idioms with ethnic component. As a particular example of cultural and language stereotypisation we analyze the image of Gypsy. The analysis of idioms with the Gypsy component is made considering national experience – historically developed conditions and contemporary facts, national mythology. The attention is given to the analysis of stereotype mobility – transformation of images in process of changing of the state of culture. The information from analyzed phraseological, etymologic and explanatory dictionaries published in the period of the end of the 19th and the begging of the 20th centuries show that the image of the Gypsy is most represented in Ukrainian and Czech language image of the world. In all analyzed languages negative characteristics in these idioms prevail. Equally with all-slavic idioms, every language developed its own units, based on own experience with the nation.

Key words: idiom, phraseology, language picture of the world, stereotype, Russian, Belarusian, Ukrainian, Czech, «one’s own – someone else’s», ethnic component, pseudo-ethnic component, Gypsy.

References

Vitaly BEZROGOV

Institute for Strategy of Education Development of the Russian Academy of Education, Moscow, Russia
Chief Researcher, Doctor of Pedagogical Sciences, Associate Professor

Communicating Blinding Watching: Visuals in Elementary School Textbooks

The article considers the role of illustrations in the communication which simulates educational literature for elementary school. Visual tutorial component meets each student – one who reads all the paragraphs, all the stories, answers all questions; and the one who just scrolls down school books in order to forget it forever. In any case, the image depicted in the drawings, inevitably come to be alive under his gaze. The textbook becomes a «social mirror». Analysis of some constructions engaged in «education of vision» are presented in this paper to the reader. The author considers non-verbal components of the textbook as one of the most mass books, the visual components of its content, information level and others: methodical, didactic, emotional, suggestive, training, etc. The study of the visual component of instructional books, its nature, purpose and calling, its own non-verbal voice is very important to show how the attention of the student, teachers, parents leads by the textbook’s visuals to and away from those it does want or doesn’t want to discuss with children and adults raising them.

Key words: visuals, communication, textbook, semantics, education, elementary schooling, mental equipment, iconography, cognitive experience.

References

Victoria VASILEVA

National Research University Higher School of Economics, Moscow, Russia
PhD in Philosophy, Associate Professor

Post-photography as Visual Artifact and Communication Strategy: New Challenges for Social (Cultural) Anthropology

The paper is focused on the possibility of introduction of «post-photography» (identified often as digital photography) as visual images of a new type that testify appearance, development, and functioning of network communities. It is supposed that post-photography understood as a set of special communicating processes becomes a new perspective for social (cultural) anthropology which aims at studying the new type of social connectedness.

Key words: post-photography, digital image, visual communication, network community, social connectedness, social (cultural) anthropology.

References

Denis SIVKOV

The Russian Presidential Academy of National Economy and Public Administration, Moscow, Russia
School of Advanced Studies in the Humanities, Visiting Researcher, PhD in Philosophy

Communications of Technoscience and Science Fiction: Moon Exploration in Cinema before «Apollo»

The paper emphasizes the importance of collaborative forms of communication between technoscience and science fiction in cinema, between sci-tech advisers from the one side and producers, and directors from the other. There is a range of sci fi movies, where pataphysical invasion into reality and social order is absent. Except the prediction of technoscience’s inventions, science fiction uses developments of science and technology for realism. In these movies collaborative activities of cinema makers and scientists are built around realism of flight in outer space. The object of this article is the movies about exploration of moon that were made before American program «Apollo». Sci fi narrative feels limitations from actual cinematic codes and conventions that are made and overcame by cinematic technologies. Sci tech realism in moon exploration movies demonstrates non-linear character of technologies’ development as alternative ways of technological problems’ solving.

Key words: Technoscience, science fiction, Moon, outer space, sci-tech realism, pataphysics, social order, cinema, codes and conventions, collaboration.

References

Alexei KRIVOLAP

Polоtsk State University, Novopolotsk, Belarus
Associate Professor of Social Studies and Humanities Chair's on Department of Finance and Economics
Ph.D. in Cultural Studie

Normative Virtuality as an Element of Cultural Identity

The topic of the article was the consideration of the use of the notion of normative virtuality in the process of constructing a cultural identity. The article presents the history of using the concept of normative virtuality from the time when the Internet and virtuality in today's understanding simply did not exist. The approach to understanding the normative virtuality of R. Bart and J. Piaget are compared. Separately, the features of communication in a culture of connectivity are discussed (H. van Dijk) and the problem of constructing norms and normality (M. Foucault). Media consumption is understood as an individual practice aimed at constructing a cultural identity in accordance with existing cultural norms. At the end, user verification is considered as a process that contradicts the possibility of maintaining anonymity in the virtual space and this deanonymization is included in the notion of normative virtuality. The observations and conclusions suggested in the article allow the author to formulate the idea that normative virtuality allows us to consider the situation of the development of new information technologies and their influence on the processes of communication in the culture of the consumer society. And today normative virtuality is not constituted by prohibition and restriction of access, but through control and disciplinary practices in relation to users.

Key words: normative virtuality, newmedia, consumption, identity.

References

Viktoriya KANSTANTSIUK

European Humanities University, Vilnius, Lithuania
Department of Media, Lecturer

Digital Mediation and the Disappearance of Fundamental Virtuality

This article is devoted to the problem of digital mediation from the perspective of the social-critical theory (S. Zizek, J. Baudrillard, J. Dean). Socio-critical theory develops the question of the influence of the Other on the desires of the subjects, depending on the specific historical and social nature of this Other. Cyberspace, the Internet within the framework of this article is not just a means of communication, it is communication through the Other, through a symbolic structure. The paradox of cyberspace and digital mediation is that it is not virtual enough, it threatens fundamental virtuality.

Key words: virtuality, fundamental virtuality, gap, lack, Other, communicative capitalism, сommunicative individual, digital mediation, social media, circulation.

References

Anton VALKOVSKY

Volgograd State Socio-Pedagogical University, Volgograd, Russia
Curator, Culture Manager, PhD in Philosophy, Associate Professor in

Participatory Art: Transformation of the Communicative Function in Contemporary Art Practices

In the past few decades there has been a significant transformation in the communicative function of art: socially engaged art practices gaining special prominence, aiming at the construction of intersubjective relationships between recipients and between recipients and the artist as the initiator of such interactions. The reasons for these changes are analyzed in the article, as well as the author's conceptualization of participatory art.
In contemporary culture – as a result of the transition to the Post-Fordist economy – a new form of sociality is being formed – the «culture of participation». Contemporary art in the framework of participatory art practices moves to social design and creation of alternative social spaces in which this new form of sociality is modeled. The culture of participation is based on «being in common», «being together», on collective action, collective responsible action, that constructs life situations.
The culture of participation also offers a new form of intersubjective relationships that allows participants to avoid conflicts and achieve mutual understanding for a more harmonious coexistence with each other. Participatory art develops and approves tools, methods and technologies for building community and productive communication, and also creates new social actors ready for effective interaction: it teaches them to be social, plays participatory models based on collaboration, respect, mutual understanding, solidarity.

Key words: contemporary art, participatory art, community-based art, socially engaged art, public-art, relational aesthetics, culture of participation, exchange, gift, sharing, sense of belonging, empathy, Post-Fordism.

References

Margarita GUDOVA

Ural Federal University named after the first President of Russia B.N.Yeltsin, Yekaterinburg, Russia
Professor of the Philosophy Department, Doctor of Culture Studies, Associate Professor

Polymorphous Languages of Artistic Statement and New Opportunities of Art Communication (on the Example of the Kinetic Sculpture by Frederik Foert)

The article explores the problem of the “communication gap” in the existing communication between authors and addressees of contemporary art. As a reason for such a “communication gap”, structural and morphological changes in the languages of contemporary art are analyzed. With the help of semiotic and morphological methods, the processes of the formation of new polymorphic languages of contemporary art are analyzed. An example is given of synthesizing the polymorphic language of the modern kinetic sculpture in the art works by Frederik Foert, additional communication and artistic expressive possibilities of the “Julie and Natalie” 2013 project, created in such polymorphic language and presented to the Russian audience at the exhibition “Berlin case” in Yekaterinburg in 2016 are analyzed. A complex system of coding the meaning and values of kinetic Sculpture is revealed on the example of this project. The conclusion is made of the culture-centricity, intertextuality and hypertextuality of this kind of the art of the coding system, and the need for additional efforts on the part of the addresses of the contemporary art.

Key words: artistic communication, polymorphic artistic languages, contemporary art recipient, kinetic sculpture, open art work, intertextuality, hypertext.

References

Aleksey SMIRNOV

Saint-Petersburg State University, Russia
Institute of Philosophy, Department of Cultural Studies, Philosophy of Culture and Aesthetics
Associate Professor, Doctor of Science (Philosophy)

New Forms of Public Catering: Communication System in Modern Cities

The article analyzes the forms of social communication in the modern city catering. Network communications, related to territorial branding, construction of the peer economy structures and new forms of social interaction, are also being explored. The methodology is based on the Roland Barthes’s semiology. The article proves that the communication model proposed by Barthes for the description of the alimentary system requires correction.
Some main types of public catering establishments, focused on various types of social communications in a modern city, are identified. The article also defines new cultural meanings, propagated by an alimentary communication system. Areas in which these meanings are most relevant (such as peer economy, consumer values of hipsters, territorial marketing, social responsible consumption, identity building) were also established. The role and toolkit of social media in the urban catering promotion has been explored.

Key words: everyday life, public catering, third places, urban studies, consumption society, place branding, city branding.

References

Mikhail STEPANOV

Acting Head of the Department of Advertising and Public Relations at the Institute of Business Communications
Staint-Petersburg State University of Industrial Technology and Design, Russia
Associate Professor, PhD in Philosophy
D.S.Likhachev Russian Institute of Cultural and Natural Heritage, Russia
Senior Researcher of the Center for Fundamental Research of Culture

Polina EFREMOVA

Staint-Petersburg State University of Industrial Technology and Design, Russia
Department of Advertising and Public Relations at the Institute of Business Communications
Master Student

Scandal as Communicative Technology in Contemporary Popular Culture

We analyze the extraordinary behavior of the musician and designer Kanye West. This article discusses advertising means of the promotion of fashion clothing line Yeezy. The result of the work is the conclusion that the scandals can help draw attention to one or another creative activity.

Key words: advertising technologies, scandalous behavior, epatage, mass culture, Kanye West.

References

Olga ASTASHOVA

Saint-Petersburg State University of Industrial Technologies and Design, Russia
High School of Printing Arts and Media Technologies, Institute of Media Technologies, Department of Advertising
Associate Professor, PhD in Philosophy

Russian Sloganistics. Techniques for Introducing Slogans into the Language Culture

Language is a reflection on cultural reality. The experience of thought is reflected in the language, and language forms our attitude to reality. This applies to all manifestations of linguistic culture, including advertising texts. The article deals with advertising «mini-texts» – slogans. An important feature of slogan is its laconicism, compressed informativeness and suggestiveness, which are realized due to actualization and combination of various language techniques (lexical, phonetic, stylistic, syntactic). In the article language are considered such methods as precedence, use of phraseology, idioms, puns, «active word-making». The use of these language techniques fill the slogans with emotionality, interactivity, provocation, involving the recipient in communication with the brand. Language techniques allow you to include a slogan in the language culture of society, to invoce the necessary associations, to provide him with a firm and orderly place in the language culture of the consumer. The most successful versions of slogans are woven into the language culture of society, «go to the people», creating an advertiser «secondary» advertising.

Key words: advertising discourse, slogans, precedent texts, word making, pun, idioms, language culture.

References

Andrey CHUKUROV

Herzen State Pedagogical University, St.Petersburg, Russia
Associate Professor, PhD in Cultural Studies

Manuel Castells: Policy vs. Science

This article is a detailed review of the monograph by M. Castells «The Power of Communication». The book examines the history of media communication and its role in the information society. The information society, in the opinion of the author, actually creates a «creative audience» that generates their own meanings. We disagree with this statement and say that a person is not free to create new meanings and strategies. Unfortunately, in his study M. Castells does not attempt to build a direct relationship between the concepts of «state», «control» and «business». The author throughout the whole work mistakenly separates the «state / bureaucracy» from the business structures. There are many other equally controversial points in the monograph. The work contains an interesting analysis of the information society different aspects, but the depth of scientific analysis often provokes doubts because of the author’ obvious engagement.

Key words: information society, media communication, Internet, globalization, fake, control, business, post-industrial society, manipulation.

References

Alina V. VENKOVA

Herzen State Pedagogical University, St.Petersburg, Russia
Associate Professor, PhD in Cultural Studies
D.S.Likhachev Russian Institute of Cultural and Natural Heritage, Moscow
Center for Fundamental Research of Culture, Principal Research Fellow

Visual Image: actual research strategies

The paper analyzes theoretical approaches to the problem of visual communication in film, as presented in Thomas Elsaesser and Malte Hagener «Film Theory: An Introduction Through the Senses» book. In the reviewed work, viewer’s experience is represented as body experience. Particular attention is paid to the senses as metaphors of understanding process as well as the ways of theoretical interpretation. Some concepts introduced by the author — such as Window and Frame, Screen and Threshold, Look and Gaze, Mind and Body – are also analyzed and discussed in this article.

Key words: Perception, body, visual experience, Thomas Elsaesser and Malte Hagener, visual studies, film studies .

References