Communications and Life

Teachers from the HSE Faculty of Communications, Media and Design spoke at the annual International Association of Communications Conference, Communication Across the Life Span.

Our teachers Sergey Davydov,Oleg Kashirskikh and Alexandra Endaltseva presented their research at one of the most authoritative and representative international conferences on communications at the end of May. On the conference theme, researchers were encouraged to examine the various ways in which communications become a lens to interpret the changing meanings, relationships, experiences and critical crossroads in the course of life.

The conference organisers are of the opinion that it isn’t only technical evolution, economic change, medical breakthroughs, turbulence in the environment and political movements that influence our experience over the life span but also social policy and ethical frameworks that shape societies.

Oleg Kashirskikh gave a lecture on Communications in the Russian Public Sector. Taking Moscow as an example, the authors (Oleg Kashirskikh and Katerina Tsetsura from the University of Oklahoma) presented research, based on their analysis of public discourse between citizens and the Moscow authorities on urban policy issues. The method of discourse analysis helped them to identify and describe the characteristics of this interaction; in particular the empirical part of research highlighted the symbolic toolkit used by both sides in dealing with each other.

‘Our intermediary conclusions show the difficulty of developing a common language when the two groups try to communicate, a language which to a greater extent would allow them to take the point of view of their opponent into consideration in their own decision making and actions’, explained Oleg Kashirskikh.

Sergey Davydov’s paper, which he prepared together with Sergei Samoilenko of George Mason University, Elina Erzhikova of Central Michigan University and Alexander Laskin of Quinnipiac University is called Different Mediums, Same Messages; Character Assassination Practices During the Ukrainian Crisis. It is the results of an analysis of news coverage on leading Russian and American TV channels of the downing of the Malaysian Boeing 777 on Ukrainian territory on the 17th July 2014.    

‘We developed and tested a method of analysing the character assassination device in media texts as part of the project,’ explained Sergey Davydov. ‘The research results show that if the Russian media analysis of events was predominantly political, and the main communications device was omission, then American television was dominated by a military discourse, which demonised the pro-Russian fighters.’

The conference ran from 21st - 25th of May in San Juan, Puerto Rico.