The Lecturers of the School of Integrated Communications presented research at the NCA convention

The Lecturers of the School of Integrated Communications took part in the annual National Communication Association.

NCA – National Communication Association – organises the convention every year. Scientists from all over the world discuss communication issues, share their experience and knowledge. At the convention communications are primarily discussed as an educational knowledge area, so lecturers, academics and practitioners that study communications in all shapes and forms become the main guests and characters. 

This year the NCA convention was held for the 106th time, and for the first time - fully online. The lecturers of our School participated in several panel discussions and presented their research. This year the topics of their research touched upon the interaction of Russian authorities and citizens, communication during the pandemic, and the relationship between parents and children in the context of blood donation.

Blood donation in the context of communications

Maria Mordvinova, the academic supervisor of “Advertising and Public Relations” Bachelor’s programme, and Nelly Bachurina one of the School’s professors talked about the sociocultural obstacles, that arise in terms of blood donation in Russia. Their presentation is based on a series of empirical studies. Anastasia Yancheva, an “Advertising and PR” programme graduate, who had successfully submitted her final year project about blood donation in English, also took part in the research.
The focus of that study was the communication in terms of blood donation between parents and their children. People in Russia donate blood without a second thought, but only when they’re asked to do it once. Herewith, donating blood regularly becomes a much more difficult task. The researchers name prejudice of blood donation being conjugated with high risk as one of the reasons. What drives the formation of this attitude? Parents avoid this topic because it is considered dangerous, and children, seeing the unwillingness of their parents to discuss blood donation, think that the topic is not important enough to get into. 

Socio-political discourse in Russia 

Oleg Kashirskhyh, the academic supervisor of “Integrated Communications” Master’s programme accents an unsatisfying social integration and communication both between citizens and between the citizens and the government as a factor, that slows down the development of the symbolic basis of the socio-political discourse in our country. In the study, Kashirskhyh uses the theoretic border of thesis about “symbolic deficits of the post-soviet grounds” (Oushakine, Verdery), to reveal the deficit of symbolic means in the formation on the attitude of Russian citizens to the “communication” phenomenon in its widest understanding: politics, education, etc.

Communications in Russia during the pandemic

Nikita Savin, the academic supervisor of “Communications in the Public Sector and NGOs”, and Kirill Chmel, the researcher at the Ronald F. Inglehart Laboratory for Comparative Social Research presented joint research. The question in the centre of the project’s attention is how the government should build communication with the citizens about the pandemic and the precautions to be taken.
To study that, our lecturers conducted two online experiments. The first experiment was conducted during the first wave of COVID-19, and students from 4 regions participated in (Moscow, Saint-Petersburg, Nizhny Novgorod and Perm). The second experiment was conducted in the second wave, and 1500 respondents of all age groups, living in different federal districts, participated. The results of the study showed that the “social responsibility” frame has less impact on people than the “egoism” frame. To convince citizens to take the necessary precautions, the mass media and the government should urge people to take care of themselves, and not of each other.