Vol 15, No 3 (2015)

Collective memory does not retain the memories of the past as historical events really happened, but as they are remembered in the present. Memory includes only elements of the past, not the past as a whole. Theoretical thinking about memory has been shaped by opinions often arising from very different starting points. This article outlines ten antinomies characterised by the following terms: individual and collective memory, spirit and matter, saving and deleting, irrevocable and revocable history, spontaneous and purposeful memory, myth and science, rationality and irrationality. The text explains that memory works in a selective way and the contents which are stored in it have no permanent form, but change over time according to the needs of the specific present. Human memory does not work as a rational machine, but rather is prone to distortions and errors. An important role in shaping collective memory is played by ideological influence and deep-rooted historical myths.

The article is devoted to the analysis of visual research methodology using phenomenological concept ‘life-world’. The author considers basic socio-cultural principles of visual culture in the postmodern era, the theoretical grounds of ‘visual turn’, the manifestation of the simulacra nature through visuality and the design of items-images. The importance of the study is determined by the growth of visual content and the planet coverage by visual media. Currently visual studies focus mainly on such visual content as photography, billboards, and cinema; however, there is a new field for the development of visual methods - the Internet. The variety of designs and interfaces suggests the formation of a special virtual Internet culture that indirectly depends on socio-cultural characteristics of the creators of the project or the majority of users. The author conducted comparative analysis of two search systems - Google and Yandex - using visual methods to test the hypothesis that Russian users preference of the search system Yandex can be explained by a number of graphical and navigational features of the system suitable to Russian users. The results of the research seem to confirm this hypothesis revealing a number of elements of design and interface, which correlate with the cultural preferences of the inhabitants of the post-Soviet countries.

The identity questions have become one of the leading topics in the contemporary social science due to the emergence of a number of problems that complicate self-identification processes in the (post) modern society. The new status of the modernity - ‘fluid’ - has led to the fact that identity as a result of membership in a social group lost its static nature: everyday every individual has to take responsibility to choose his life direction and, respectively, to change his identification as a member of a specific community. Globalization has also changed the process of ethnic identity formation, which, on the one hand, turns into a protest aiming at preserving one’s uniqueness in a globalizing world; on the other hand, ethnic identity is a result of the already accomplished globalization revealing all its transformations. Thus, aggravation of interethnic conflicts related to the identity issues is most common in multiethnic societies. The article presents the results of the empirical research of the ethnic identity of young people in Chad. The interviews conducted by the author revealed the leading type of ethnic identity among young people in Chad and its specific features in new life conditions.

Social networks such as Facebook and Twitter have recently become very popular and turned to be an effective instrument for achieving political goals. However, the social networks’ impact is rather ambivalent: on the one hand, social media form specific political actors and support self-organization and civil movements; on the other hand, social media reinforce destructive and aggressive manifestations with the pronounced criminal purposes, e.g. social media ability to disseminate information among large groups is used to organize mass riots. The article analyzes one of the recent and significant events largely provoked by the social networks - mass riots in the United Kingdom in August 2011 that were originally a reaction to the murder of M. Diggan by a police officer who tried to arrest him as a suspect in drug trafficking and possession of weapons. The way events developed into mass riots was the result of discussions in social media and use of social networks to coordinate joint actions of mass riots participants. The article provides a detailed description of the events and authorities’ actions to overcome the crisis and prevent such riots in the future, thus making some conclusions about the nature of social media impact on the politics.

The authors consider issues of organizational management in terms of improving its economic efficiency and interpret personnel risks as potential losses or threats to the economic activities of enterprise. The article focuses on a special group of risks associated with individual characteristics and interpersonal interaction, i. e. social activities of team members within the group. As a rule, organizations use methods of socio-psychological diagnostics at the first step of candidates’ selection to create such an organizational structure that takes into account professional and personal characteristics and competencies of candidates as well as their predisposition to a certain type of activities. The authors consider the problem of candidates’ acceptance or rejection of a certain type of corporate culture prevailing in the enterprise, and at the same time team’s acceptance or rejection of candidates with certain cultural preferences. The second application for social-psychological research techniques, important for management practices, is keeping up the team active state and increasing its effectiveness through its human potential realization. The article presents the results of the study of groups with low social status focusing on their members’ individual characteristics. The authors propose methods to work with team members and groups as a whole that can stabilize social systems and develop techniques for managing personnel risks.

The sphere of management activities in contemporary organizations is undergoing through serious transformations; in particular, robotic production is becoming more common. In this situation, the importance of studying managers’ work at all organizational levels grows, especially at the middle level for its managers form the core of organization as having deep knowledge and experience, as well as regulating all daily operations. Managerial freedom in the work of middle level managers is a new response to the demands for innovative activities and competitiveness every organization faces. At the same time, globalization leads to the partnership between Russian and European companies, however, effectiveness of such relations depends largely on understanding social and cultural foundations of management. The article considers social and cultural prerequisites of managerial freedom in Russia and Europe focusing on the differences of Russian and European history of entrepreneurship, its backgrounds, key actors and functions of managers in former times. The author shows specific features of social institutions that formed the basis for the development of the business world and determined the very essence of managerial freedom.