No 1 (2010)

The problem of migration is gaining in importance throughout the world and involves the appropriate policy compatible with the contemporary state of society. The article offers the insight into migration policies in Great Britain, France, Germany and Russia and provides their comparative analysis.

The article summarizes the results of the survey of religious identity of young students in Tyumen conducted by the author. The conclusion is made that the features of ethnic culture are inherited by its religious component. On the one hand, the valorization of religion in the contemporary youth consciousness is highlighted. On the other hand, its secondary importance in the system of core values is pointed out.

The article examines the impact of information culture on the processes of formation and development of information society.

The article provides a review of the pivotal doctrines in the sphere of social sciences and humanities methodology, namely positivism (O. Comte, H. Spenser et al) and antipositivism (W. Dilthey, H. Rickert et al). In terms of E. Husserl's late philosophy as well as the works of M. Merleau-Ponty and A. Schutz the article provides the analysis of one of the prominent schools of the contemporary social theory - phenomenological sociology which is highlighted as the non-classical strategy of the philosophical methodology of social sciences and humanities opposing both Comte's objectivism as well as the sociological «subjectivism» of Neo-Kantianism.

The article focuses on intertextuality as a concept associated with the tradition of postmodernism textology and a phenomenon of text interaction with the semiotic cultural environment. The concept of intertextuality emerges as an essential condition for the construction of meaning which includes the dialogical characteristics of the polylogue culture field. The author examines the evolution of intertextuality since M.M. Bakhtin up to contemporary theoreticians of postmodernism. The concept of intertextuality is the prominent characteristics of the contemporary «post» culture and the major channel of inter-cultural diffusion.

The article offers the systematic analysis of the issues related to the sociological research of popular culture at theoretical and empirical levels. The former level of analysis deals with the definitions of pop-culture in comparison with the closely related concept of mass culture as well as interdisciplinary endeavours to conceptualize the range of topics related to popular culture. Furthermore, the functions of popular culture as well as its socialization opportunities (both positive and negative) are outlined. As far as the empirical analysis is concerned, the above-mentioned issues have yet received little attention. The sociological analysis tools usually comprise nothing but youth leisure preferences and value orientations theme-based modules which are not infrequently supposed to confirm the negative influence of television on socialization. The authors put forward another approach to the empirical study of the impact of popular culture with the focus on the analysis of identification models represented in «texts» of popular culture. An example illustrating the application of the given approach (the content-analysis of the youth magazine «Molotok») is provided in this very item.