No 2 (2011)

In the article the author continues to introduce the reader to the findings of the exploratory research aimed to reconstruct some structural elements of the phenomenon of loneliness. In this instance, the article describes the application of psycho-semantic methods used in combination with the method of unfinished sentences. The approach used in the article enables the author to study loneliness turning directly to the affective level of the respondents' emotions.

At the time of social reform in social-territorial communities, it is impossible to encourage public participation without a clear understanding of its specific features and potential. The article examines a rarely used method for diagnosing public participation in the social-territorial context - the method of social mapping. The author reveals the essence of the method, identifies and describes the main strategies of social mapping of public participation used in today's social research in Russia and other countries.

The article is devoted to the evaluation of the role and place of intellectuals in the ideological preparation of the Velvet revolution in Czechoslovakia in November, 1989. It examines the sociological conceptions of revolution, and their applicability to the analysis of the November events. In the analysis of the subsequent evolution of the Czech republic, the author notes the difficulties of the transition from a post-totalitarian society to the market economy, describes the social-economic system, which emerged as a result of the revolution, characterized by consumerism, domination of mass culture etc, which turned out to be a far cry from what the mass, carried away with a certain euphoria, had expected.

In the public discourse, cinematic views on the analysis of movies traditionally prevail. The author suggests another approach: in the course of the experiment aimed to reveal the audience's perception of the film „Welcome to Zombieland the author discovers an atypical interpretation of this horror film as an instrument of educating the young generation, those features of the ideological message of the film that can transform any genre into, it would seem, its complete opposite - a collection of contemporary society norms and behavior patterns. The main conclusion of the article is that the perception of a film is a complex social action which always goes beyond any cinematic interpretations.

The article views Labor migration as a means to solve unemployment problems in the republic. Migration shows not only the mobility of the population but it also reflects the life standards of the Kalmyk people in the past decade. Every year thousands of qualified specialists leave the region, which requires that they should comply with the new models of behavior and social standards that differ fundamentally from the mode of life in the agrarian Kalmyk republic. The megapolis changes the morals, values and ethnic features of labor migrants, imparting to them new elements of culture different from their ethnic nature. In the course of adaptation of Kalmyk-migrants to the conditions of the modern poly-ethnic city people tend to get estranged from their traditional ethno-environment, which eventually results in their loss of their native language and other elements of ethnic culture, unique traditions and customs gradually disappear, and the problem of preserving ethnicity in the Kalmyk diaspora arises.

The article deals with important economic and sociological problems taking into account their relevance to economics and sociology of labor as two independent sciences. The author suggests some demarcation boundaries of the concepts relevant to contemporary life within these two disciplines.