Vol 25, No 4 (2025)

The article considers the nonlinear production of scientific innovations in sociology in the context of Robert Merton’s success in creating an original theory in competition with other authoritative scholars. The relevance of his experience is determined by todays’ focus on training sociologists as experts ready to develop creativity and ability to apply unconventional approaches to diagnose the increasingly complex challenges that Russian scientists face. The article explains the enduring significance of such Merton’s principles as “organized skepticism”, “sociological ambivalence”, and “specific ignorance”, which have proven their efficiency in producing scientific innovations in various historical periods. The article presents Merton’s description of sociology in the USSR through its “original organization” as the social-cultural determinant of such innovations as the integral use of the results of natural sciences and sociology for the national development, “rapprochement” of Marxism and the world sociological thought as the basis for the transition from monodisciplinarity to polyparadigmality, development of “engineering of social change”, new ideas about social well-being as a working and healthy lifestyle, search for humanized technologies, etc. The authors focus on the expression “standing on the shoulders of giants”, which allowed Merton to reveal the “critical nonlinear reflection” of scientific innovations not only in sociology, but also in natural sciences. The authors make conclusions about the cultural and civilizational determinacy of innovations in sociology, providing an example of a comparative analysis of the contribution of Russian and foreign scientists to the world sociological thought and warning about the uncritical borrowing of “universal” innovations from other cultures as leading to pseudo-innovations, non-functionality and dysfunctionality of social institutions.

Deepfakes as digital artifacts created with deep machine learning have already become a common phenomenon with multiple forms, but social consequences of this technology are still controversial. The authors conducted a sociological analysis based on the social construction of technology theory (SCOT) and cultural sociology to identify three intertwined levels of the deepfake as an artifact: (a) technical - based on generative neural networks capable of creating highly realistic content and providing artificial intelligence (AI) with features of a perfect mimetic object, thus, overcome barriers of social recognition; (b) media - mechanisms of pragmatic impact, including creolization, intertextuality and metanarrativity; (c) social - functions and dysfunctions of deepfakes and also social domains that change under their influence. The social significance of deepfakes is ambivalent: on the one hand, this technology is highly risky, produces significant threats to privacy, cybersecurity, and social stability; on the other hand, it provides previously unseen opportunities for development in the fields of art, education, healthcare and business. This approach allows to overcome the limitations of the dominant alarmist discourse that reduces deepfakes to tools of disinformation and fraud, thus revealing the social construction of technical artifacts. Despite the obvious discursive stigmatization in the very portmanteau “deepfake”, it is important to see the satirical potential of such media as a tool for maintaining democratic culture. In the mixed communication perspective, deepfakes ensure visible prosopopean transmobility of AI, creating new forms of social agency through the mechanisms of social mimesis. The most technically advanced deepfakes generate virtual personas capable of effective mimetic communication beyond the “uncanny valley”. Their quasi-human subjectivity is recognized as normal and credible, since the conditions for constructing a significant Other are mimetic: mimicry (of human visceral features); imitation (of social actions); emulation (of meaningfulness and empathy). As with other innovative technologies, the key to controlling deepfakes is not its prohibition but a deep understanding of its social construction together with reasonable modes of its management in the interests of the public good.

The article considers the development of eco-sustainable practices as a part of the global cultural shift from materialist values to the post-materialist ones. The first part briefly outlines the central ideas of R. Inglehart’s evolutionary theory of modernization, which defines the global cultural shift as a transition in individual life strategies from “survival” to “self-expression” due to the growing predominance of post-materialist values over the materialist ones. Such transformations are expected to reshape consumer practices - from hedonistic consumption rooted in acquisitive values to responsible, proenvironmental consumption shaped by post-materialist orientations. However, this transition is inconsistent and contradictory due to multiple barriers. The author considers institutional and value-based barriers to the expansion of pro-environmental consumption (green gap, elitism of eco-consumption in qualitative terms, hedonistic values and orientations). The article is based on empirical data and aims at proving the hypothesis of the macro-social stability of hedonistic consumer practices which prevail even in societies with high levels of economic and existential security, where post-materialism dominates the social-political sphere. Even younger generations, which socialized in the conditions of relative economic security and are more likely to have post-materialist orientations, show a decline in interest in pro-environmental consumption. The author argues that eco-consumerism is a nonlinear outcome of the global value shift from materialism to post-materialism, which makes ecoconsumption practices a hybrid phenomenon that reflects an adaptation of consumer values to ecological trends. Thus, eco-consumerism as an expression of post-materialism contradicts the logic of consumerist hedonism supported and reinforced by the contemporary consumer culture.

The article considers family-related values a s perceived and practiced by the Russian student youth. The article is based on the data of the 2025 online survey conducted in six higher education institutions (N=1173; bachelor’s, master’s, and specialist’s studies; natural sciences, social sciences and humanities, mathematics-information profiles). The study’s initial hypothesis was that life-related values f orm the core of attitudes toward family and the focus of building a family and marital career. Conceptually, the question of family values r equires the analysis of basic life meanings that regulate ideas, beliefs, attitudes, and actions of young people. The priority values o f contemporary students include: sufficient economic and cultural capital, financial security (stable, good income), and a quality education. The authors note a pragmatic attitude toward family: although family ranks third or fourth on the list of values, it encompasses a range of attributive life-meaning values, including the meaning of life together, the goal-setting of family life, a plan for future financial and economic activities, attitudes toward a partner, an assessment of marriage, rights and obligations, sexual life and intimacy, family planning, future parenthood, and relationships with family members. Familymeaning values a re largely represented by maintaining ties with the parental family and having children, but without specific reproductive plans. Students are also interested in the family tree and genealogy, family fate, and lives of relatives in the context of the country’s history. Respondents positively evaluate digital technologies as a means of interaction in the (re)production of family relationships and ensuring family well-being. The family’s life-meaning values, which determine the worldview, attitudes and behavior of the Russian youth, vary by generation but are relatively stable.

The article considers concepts and phenomena that provide an understanding of the social space of the country, which encompasses individuals with their abilities, needs, life circumstances, assessments, and opinions. The study is based on P. Bourdieu’s theory of social space as a set of social fields: economic, political, bureaucratic, religious, national, regional, and value-based. The study of the last three fields, which Bourdieu did not specifically address, is explained by the specifics of the Russian situation. Without taking these fields into account, the study of mass consciousness and the positions of actors and groups in social space would be incomplete. The article aims at presenting a holistic view of social space on the basis of empirical indicators. Fields of social space are considered as multi-component objects that cannot be reduced to a single whole due to different foundations, sets of features/indicators and different influences on the position of the individual in society. The author considers social space through the prism of mass consciousness (assessments of social fields and one’s positions in them), which provides an insight into the qualities of these fields, which contribute to or hinder the development of society and human well-being. The empirical data of the study consists of the all-Russian monitoring of the Center for the Study of Social-Cultural Changes of the Institute of Philosophy of the Russian Academy of Sciences (CSSC IF RAS) (1990-2023), European Social Survey (ESS), in which Russia participated, surveys conducted by the leading Russian public opinion centers in 2024-2025 and the Russian Social Survey (RSI) in 2024. The article shows that the fields of social space in Russia are heterogeneous and dynamic, which makes its study an urgent task under the current internal and external, economic and social-political challenges.

In the Almaty metropolitan area with the significant social-economic stratification, the relevance of the study is determined by the need to understand how household income affects women’s reproductive strategies and identity. The article aims at identifying the relationship between subjective well-being, financial difficulties, family plans and reproductive health symptoms of 18-49-year-old women in Almaty. The authors conducted a cross-sectional quantitative survey on a multi-layered random sample with face-to-face interviews (N=320 women from eight districts of the city. Descriptive statistics, Spearman correlation analysis, regressions, factor and cluster analyses revealed a positive correlation between financial difficulties and postponing a childbirth in the next 3-5 years, a negative correlation between well-being and physical discomfort, and a positive correlation between family plans and seeking medical help. Women with children are significantly more likely to report reproductive symptoms, which indicates the need for a better postnatal care. Household income is a key determinant of both specific reproductive decisions (timing and planning of childbirth, seeking medical care) and reproductive identity formation. The study combined quantitative methods with an emphasis on subjective assessments of well-being and analysis of health symptoms, which allows for assessing the targeted support measures: development of free and mobile services for low-income women, postnatal monitoring programs and educational campaigns on reproductive health under the social inequality in Almaty.

In the post-Soviet period, social-economic differentiation in Russia has intensified, which is reflected in the concentration of population, capital and infrastructure in agglomerations and resort areas, while peripheral territories lose opportunities for development. This process has particularly affected small and medium-sized rural communities experiencing depopulation, declining employment and limited access to basic services. Thus, there is a system of uneven development, which consolidates differences between the center and the periphery. The Crimean Peninsula is a concentrated manifestation of such trends: differentiation of spatial development is reinforced by a combination of tourism and recreational specialization, differences in naturalresource conditions, and political-administrative transformations in the post-Soviet period. The contrast between coastal areas and large agglomerations, which concentrate investment and jobs, and rural settlements in the center of the peninsula, which experience population outflow and a lack of resources, makes the region illustrative for the analysis of territorial imbalances. The article identifies social mechanisms that determine differences in the dynamics of rural areas in Crimea. The case study is based on historical, geographical and social-economic analysis, statistical and archival materials, mapping and field observations. Spatial differentiation is considered as both a result of economic processes and a form of social inequality, which affects life strategies of rural communities and structure of local livelihood practices. The author shows that the transformation of settlement patterns in Crimea is accompanied by a reduction in the number of small villages, concentration of resources in a limited number of centers, and deepening rural-urban asymmetries. At the same time, there are compensatory mechanisms based on informal economy, horizontal mobility and local forms of mutual assistance, which explain the specifics of the Crimean rural transformation and the mechanisms of territorial differentiation in post-Soviet rural areas.

The concept of “anomie” is fundamental to sociology for at least two reasons, in addition to its well-known application for constructing models of the social, which have retained their heuristic potential to this day. First, anomie is an integral and fundamentally important part of the categorical apparatus that ensured the development and “legitimization” of sociology as a new field of social inquiry with its own subject field and “rhetoric”. Second, unlike many other sociological terms (“social fact”, “social action”, “charisma”, “marginal”, “social type”, “deviation”, etc.), which lost their original sociological “sterility” due to everyday use, “anomie” still provides sociologists (and representatives of other disciplines) with a sense of belonging to a community of “initiates” in the meaning of categories that are incomprehensible for the average person. The article presents: the BRVssical sociological interpretation of anomie by E. Durkheim; the generally accepted definition of anomie as a certain transitional state of society with no single or understandable system of moral principles and norms, no hierarchy of social positions and values; two conditional directions of the development of the concept of anomie after Durkheim - a description of the situation of “normlessness” and of the state of “normative tension” in a specific culture (R. Merton is considered the founder of the latter); another vector in the development of the theory of anomie, based on its two “dimensions” - macro-social (BRVssical Durkheimian approach) and micro-social (Merton’s concept is considered more social-psychological); an attempt to group theories that developed on the basis of two BRVssical concepts of anomie into six approaches - three sociological (structural-functional, social-cultural and communicativeinformational), criminological, psychological and managerial, or to BRVrify specific forms of manifestation of anomie in certain spheres of life of contemporary society (for example, political anomie).

The authors conduct a sociological analysis of the development prospects of the Russian society, focusing on the characteristics of Russian strategies for creating the future in the context of opposition to the Western model of social-historical development. The article considers the theoretical foundations of the sociology of the future, introducing the concept of dynamic lines leading from the past to the future; various types of ideas about the future, including its rationalistic concept as an object of purposeful, constructive activity (a project-based type of social thinking) and Russian ideas about the future in connection with the so-called Russian idea; transformation of the logic of creating the future in the context of Russians’ changing attitudes toward the Western model of development and their history (rejection of the reproductive method of creating the future); Russian style of social development in recent decades and accepted method of creating the future as a traditionalist modernization. The authors believe that it is fundamentally impossible to manage the creation of the future but admit that it is possible to manage our movement towards the future. Based on the sociological research of recent decades, the authors identify the key semantic components of the attractive future for Russia, including the Russian understanding of democracy. When assessing the recent trends, the authors note the changing global civilizational landscape, which creates conditions for a new Russian idea combining notions of “good society” inherent in the Russian cultural-historical tradition with the current global agenda.

The development prospects of the state and society largely depend on the quality of training highly qualified specialists in the higher education system. One aspect of such training is the development of values and ideological-political education, which provides the moral foundation for future social development. To strengthen the “four aspects of self-confidence” (in one’s path, theory, system, and culture), the leadership of the Communist Party of China and the Chinese government have implemented Xi Jinping’s ideas of socialism with Chinese characteristics in university education and training. In addition to strengthening educational work, a unique challenge for social sciences and humanities is the study and teaching of foreign languages. Knowledge of language and of other cultures facilitates international contacts; therefore, since the fall of 2022, Chinese universities have introduced foreign language BRVsses based on the textbook series “Understanding Contemporary China”. This series aims at developing such students’ communication skills that would help to “hear the voice of China” all around the world and would allow people in other countries to understand better social realities of today’s China. Given the unprecedented level of relations between China and Russia, teaching Russian with the new textbook series would promote mutual understanding between the peoples of two countries, although introduction of highly complex materials into the university curriculum would require significant efforts of all parties involved.

The article is a review of the book edited by M.K. Gorshkov and N.E. Tikhonova Russian Society and Challenges of the Time . Book 8 (Moscow: Ves Mir, 2025, 352 p.). This book by the scholars from the Institute of Sociology of the Federal Center of Theoretical and Applied Sociology of the Russian Academy of Sciences is based on many years of sociological research (2014-2024) and presents a comprehensive in-depth analysis of the changes in the Russian society under the influence of both external and internal risks and challenges. The book considers the features of public perception of the situation at the global, national, and local levels; factors determining social well-being and psychological state of different strata; different value and ideological groups; subjective well-being of Russians and causes of the persistent level of poverty; material and non-material forms of inequality. Under growing tensions with Western countries and new social-cultural challenges, the book focuses on life guidelines, normative-value attitudes and behavioral strategies of Russians. Therefore, the book can be recommended to researchers - sociologists, psychologists, philosophers, historians, economists, lawyers, and others.

The article is a review of Richard Sennett’s The Conscience of the Eye: The Design and Social Life of Cities (Moscow: New Literary Observer, 2024. 328 p.), which aims at identifying the place of Sennett’s book in the intellectual context of urban sociology in the late 20th century and showing how Sennett develops the humanistic line of urban studies by rethinking this line through the visual approach. The author emphasizes the significance of the book due to its original central idea - a shift from the analysis of structures and institutions to the study of visual practices, forms of visibility, and moral aspects of perception. At the same time, the author notes the metaphorical nature of Sennett’s argumentation and the limited empirical basis of his research as close to philosophy of culture. However, the book is presented in the article as an important stage in the evolution of a postmodernist approach to the study of urban everyday life and a sociological reflection on visuality as a form of social interaction.