The SUSU Institute of Media, Social Sciences and Humanities trains highly qualified personnel of the 21st century and conducts scientific research in the field of history, archaeology, philology, media communications and journalism, art history, sociology, and philosophy. Here is an interview with the Director of the Institute of Media, Social Sciences and Humanities, Doctor of Sciences (Philology), Professor Lidiya Lobodenko about how the strategy for the development of the institute is being built, what has been done despite the pandemic, and how the humanities scholars see their future.
– Please, tell us what determines the development strategy of the Institute today?
- Strategic fields for the development of the Institute are determined by the strategic goal of SUSU, that is to become a world-class research and entrepreneurial university to ensure sustainable development of the Big Urals region, as well as breakthrough fields of the development of the university in Digital Industry, Materials Science, Ecology, formation and implementation of the “Chelyabinsk, a Smart City” project. Hence our strategic field, which is the digital transformation of the media, a social and humanitarian sphere under the influence of factors of global and national character. At the same time, the main fields of activity - education, science, and innovation of the Institute - are developing in the coordinates of the international recognition of the university.
- In the end of 2020, the scientific competition of the Russian Foundation for Basic Research was held in the Chelyabinsk Region. All 245 projects were announced, 119 of which were submitted by South Ural State University. How did the Institute prove itself in that situation?
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- The departments and RECs of the Institute submitted 11 applications and 6 of our projects became winners of the regional competition of the best projects of fundamental scientific research conducted jointly by the RFBR and the Chelyabinsk Region. Among them, there are “Asian Vector of Migration to the Chelyabinsk Region: Historical Retrospective, Forecasts and Risks” by A.A. Avdashkin and E.I. Salganova; “European” Component of the South Ural Society: Parishioners of the Chelyabinsk Church and Their Social Ties at the Beginning of the 20th Century” by A.N. Andreev; “Lifestyle and Social Structure of the Early Nomads of the South Urals at the End of the 7th – 3rd Centuries BC” by N.A. Berseneva; “The South Urals in the Nomadic World of Eurasia in the Second Half of the 1st Millennium AD (in the Context of Multidisciplinary Research)” by I.V. Grudochko; “South Urals Students Reading: Incentives and Practices for the Formation of the Intellectual Resource of the Region in the Digital Age” by N.L. Zykhovskaya; “Fulfilling the Potential of the Historical and Cultural Heritage of the Chelyabinsk Region” by I.A. Semyan. In addition, two projects of the Department of Philosophy won in the III competition of environmental initiatives: these are the “Educational Manual for Children of Preschool and Primary School Age: Red Book of the Chelyabinsk Region” (supervised by I. Kamalieva) and “Environmental Game: Sorting. Board Game” (supervised by А. Dydrov). Moreover, as of the beginning of July 2020, funding was confirmed under three RFBR grants, including the International Online Conference on Philosophical Practice “Philosophical Practice: Self-Knowledge Through Intellectual Creativity” (supervised by S. Borisov), “Culture and Society of Early Nomads of the Southern Trans-Urals (based on materials from the Kichigino I burial ground)” (supervised by A.D. Tairov); “City Cinema of the Soviet Era: Transformation of Social Space (Moscow - Leningrad - Chelyabinsk)” (supervised by E.V. Volkov). In addition, the following grants are being implemented: RSF “Migration of Collectives and Individual Mobility (Archaeology, Paleogenetics, Analysis of Stable Isotopes)” (supervised by A.V. Epimakhov); in the framework of the State Assignment of the Ministry of Education and Science of the Russian Federation “Study of the Region in the Context of Global Historical Relations Using the Methods of Digital Humanities (on the example of Chelyabinsk and the Chelyabinsk Region)” (supervised by A.V. Epimakhov), a grant from the RFBR postgraduate competition “Children and War: Transformation of the Childhood in Russia during the First World War and the Civil War”(supervised by O.Yu. Nikonova, postgraduate student E.V. Kravchenko).
- In the autumn of 2020, it was announced that the Institute formed and began to implement the interdisciplinary research field “Digital communications and technologies in the era of artificial intelligence: virtual journalism, neuromarketing, digital anthropology and digital philology”. Could you please elaborate on this issue?
- It is my pleasure, since this large-scale research field includes breakthrough projects of the departments. The Department of Philosophy has presented a new project “Digital Anthropology”. The main goal of the project is to search for an effective response to the challenges of the digital era in the interaction of humans, technologies and public institutions, in the adaptation of public consciousness to modern crisis conditions (man-made, environmental, pandemic), in overcoming stress factors, within the framework of which the working group of the project develops a unique methodology of anthropological examination. It resulted in a victory in the first competition for grants of the President of the Russian Federation for the development of civil society with the project “Adaptation Chatbot for International Students of the Russian University Sokrat-2020”.
The Department of Journalism, Advertising and Public Relations masters neuromarketing technologies and virtual journalism. The International Interuniversity Research Project “Digital Civilization. Media Communications. Internet Marketing” has been implemented, which brings together the research by leading scientists in the field of strategic marketing communications of universities in Russia, Belgium, and the USA. In July, Liudmila Shesterkina and Anna Krasavina took part in the IAMCR international conference with a presentation on the topic of immersive storytelling in VR.
The Department of the Russian Language and Literature and the Institute of Slavic Studies at the University of Zurich have developed a common educational and scientific vector that is most relevant for today, namely the field of Digital Humanities. Just as SUSU philology students create websites about literature in their project classes (Virtual Museum of South Ural Writers; Divan), students in Switzerland are working on the creation of an electronic journal SlavicumPress dedicated to various issues of contemporary culture. The result of this cooperation is the work of a joint student editorial board: philology students of the Institute of Media, Social Sciences and Humanities are editors of a Swiss magazine, and Zurich students place their materials in our digital projects.
– The Laboratory for Migration Studies operates within the Institute of Media, Social Sciences and Humanities. What research is being carried out in this direction?
The Laboratory for Migration Studies (Deputy Head O. Nikonova, Senior Research Fellow A. Avdashkin) is actively implementing monitoring projects to study the problems and risks of interethnic relations and the religious situation during the preparation and conduct of the All-Russian Population Census 2020 in the regions of the Siberian, Ural and Far Eastern federal districts, the impact of migration on urban space, the migration and ethno-confessional situation in the Chelyabinsk Region, and ethno-demographic processes in Asian Russia. In addition, cross-disciplinary research is carried out in the field of regional national and migration policy of the Chelyabinsk Region, including on the basis of comprehensive studies of migration from Asian countries. Bachelor's, Master's degree students and postgraduates are actively involved in this work. Within the framework of project training, a joint project dedicated to Migration and Migrants in the Mirror of Public Opinion of the City of Chelyabinsk is being implemented under the guidance of the Head of the Department of Sociology of the Institute of Media, Social Sciences and Humanities E. Salganova. The Laboratory for Migration Studies conducts open lectures, master classes for students of various fields of training on migration issues, including with the participation of prominent foreign and Russian scientists and experts in the field of migration.
– Is it really necessary to have a serious laboratory base to carry out such large-scale cross-disciplinary research?
– With the support of SUSU Rector Aleksandr Shestakov, we are actively working on the development of the infrastructure of the Institute of Media, Social Sciences and Humanities: the installation of specialized equipment in the International Research Laboratory of Virtual Reality is about to be complete; a concept has been developed and equipment is being purchased for several new Sociology and Marketing Studies Teaching and Research Laboratories, Neuromarketing Technology Laboratory, the Laboratory of Digital Philology, the Laboratory of Advertising Technologies, and the International Laboratory for Migration Studies.
– Did the pandemic interfere with the implementation of the Institute's plans?
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– With the support of SUSU Rector Aleksandr Shestakov, we are actively working on the development of the infrastructure of the Institute of Media, Social Sciences and Humanities: the installation of specialized equipment in the International Research Laboratory of Virtual Reality is about to be complete; a concept has been developed and equipment is being purchased for several new Sociology and Marketing Studies Teaching and Research Laboratories, Neuromarketing Technology Laboratory, the Laboratory of Digital Philology, the Laboratory of Advertising Technologies, and the International Laboratory for Migration Studies.
– Did the pandemic interfere with the implementation of the Institute's plans?
– Strange as it may appear, the pandemic did not stop us. We took part in a large number of international online conferences, including: the virtual round table dedicated to the Communication During COVID-19 organized by the Manipal Institute of Communications, India; online Conference on Philosophical Practice for Self-knowledge by Means of Intellectual Creativity; the Final Interregional Forum on Public Communication as a Factor in the Development of Russia; the 10th International Scientific Conference of the National Association of Mass Media Researchers, Moscow State University; International Festival of Ancient Technologies and Cultural Communication named after Thor Heyerdahl "Desht-Thor", etc.
It is noteworthy that the conditions of quarantine did not prevent us from implementing socially significant projects: under the guidance of N. Parfentyev, N. Parfentyeva and A. Razuev, a series of art exhibitions took place in the SUSU Art Gallery – the Mechanics of Fantasy by Timur Khuzhin; Gentle Hand of Viktor Skobelev. In Memory of the Artist; opening of the reproduction of the painting "Reunification of the Volga Peoples with Russia" by the outstanding national artist Vasily Neyasov.
And what is more important is that we have maintained a high level of the educational process and continued project training. As part of the Virtual Reality (VR) Journalism course, skype lectures by foreign teachers were held throughout the academic year at the SUSU Department of Journalism, Advertising and Public Relations. An important part of the course was the preparation of production, filming and post-production in VR.
The Digital History of SUSU project of the Department of Russian and International History was launched as part of the preparation for the anniversary of the university and is currently at the next stage: a website on the history of SUSU has been designed, its possibilities for posting information and the expansion of interactive elements are limitless; mathematicians have created a database platform that will be used to store and search information on the history of SUSU.
An interfaculty educational and popular science project on Historical Reconstruction of Chelyabinsk is being actively implemented under the guidance of the Department of Russian and International History. SUSU teachers, students, partner organisations have created a website to popularize the history of Chelyabinsk and the Chelyabinsk Region, the goal of which is to revise negative stereotypes and contribute to the formation of a new brand of the Chelyabinsk Region, develop domestic tourism, increase the tourist attractiveness of Chelyabinsk, and preserve its historical and cultural heritage in digital form.
The training of students continued in the elite education cluster, where the SUSU International Reporter School (seminars for employers) and the Workshop for Creating Scientific Texts (elective course) function; as well as such elective courses as Sociological Methods in Marketing and PR, Modern Methods of Historical Research, and Self-branding: Theory and Practice of Auto-design have been created.
– What new educational programmes can we expect from the Institute of Media, Social Sciences and Humanities in the new academic year?
– We have already developed several new Bachelor's degree programmes, including Philology (a joint 2+2 programme with Osh State University, Kyrgyzstan), and Sociology (with a new specialization of Sociological and Marketing Research); and Master's degree programme on Advertising and Public Relations (Strategic Communications and Branding).
– You have ambitious plans for the future. Where do you find inspiration and how do you keep going?
– We seek our inspiration from our students. For example, the project on Virtual Museum of South Ural Writers by Master's students from the Department of Russian Language and Literature took the 3rd place in the youth project contest in the category of the Best PR Project of Informational Support of the Legislative Assembly of the Chelyabinsk Region; state awards, letters of acknowledgement from the President of the Russian Federation Vladimir Putin, have been awarded to 22 students of the Department of Journalism, Advertising and Public Relations for participation in the "To a Fairy Tale from Home" federal volunteering project. During the quarantine period, using the free hotline, they read over 600 fairy tales from the collections of the National Electronic Children's Library and Children's Radio to children. In September 2020, more than 50 students of the Department of Russian and International History took part in the All-Russian Historical Project "Victory Dictation" dedicated to the 75th anniversary of Victory in the Great Patriotic War. So we have to look up to the best! Together with SUSU students and academic staff, we intend to implement the development strategy of the Institute of Media, Social Sciences and Humanities. This will allow us to strengthen our position, fulfil all the necessary conditions to remain a leading research and education centre in Media, Social Sciences, and Humanities.