Tuesday June 25 at 11:15-12:45
Russia is facing a number of crucial choices in the years ahead. The key choices that it has to make involve modernization are economic diversification, the development of democracy and the welfare state, foreign policy and cultural identity. This session will have a special focus on questions of Russia’s democratization, development of the public sphere (Russian police), the role of the media in it, and prevailing tendencies of media space in contemporary Russia. What is the role of Russia’s media on the one hand in terms of “sovereign democracy” and on the other hand in terms of Russia’s democratisation. Does the media and especially the new media contribute to societal modernization, the development of modern political culture, and a new understanding of citizenship replacing the dominant concept of people as subjects of the state.
The session will be hosted by Prof. Markku Kivinen and Prof. Markku Kangaspuro, Centre of Excellence in Russian studies (Academy of Finland), University of Helsinki, Aleksanteri Institute. The subject of the session will be elaborated by international scholars and journalists specialised in Russia and the topics are discussed with the audience. The session is organized by Academy of Finland and University of Helsinki.
Producer: Riitta Tirronen, Communications Manager, Academy of Finland
Moderators: Markku Kangaspuro & Markku Kivinen, University of Helsinki
Speakers:
Professor Markku Kivinen has been the Director of the Aleksanteri-institute, the Finnish Centre for Russian and East European Studies, University of Helsinki since 1996. Previously he has been professor of sociology at the University of Lapland and a visiting professor at the University of Michigan. His research interest comprises social theory, power, inequality and cultural structures. He has published extensively on Russia and on transition both in Russia and in the West. He has published more than 300 articles on key sociological topics. Kivinen is the director of the Finnish Graduate School for Russian and East European Studies, and has headed many research projects funded by the Academy of Finland, the EU and NordForsk. Since 2012 he has led one of the Academy of Finland’s Centres of Excellence in Research, “Choices of Russian Modernisation”. Markku Kivinen has also published a novel. He regularly publishes popular articles on Russia and has been interviewed hundreds of times by domestic and foreign media. He is an Honorary Doctor at the Institute of Sociology at the Russian Academy of Science.
Dr Markku Kangaspuro is Research Director at the Aleksanteri Institute (Finnish Centre for Russian and Eastern European Studies), member of the board and Centre of Excellence scholar of the Finnish Centre of Excellence in Russian Studies at the University of Helsinki, and editor-in-chief of Idäntutkimus (Finnish Review of East European Studies). His expertise covers the political history of the Soviet Union, identity politics, nationalism, and Russia’s political development after the fall of the Soviet Union. His latest research projects deal with memory and history politics of Russia in terms of Second World War as well as the challenges facing Russia’s modernization.
Angelina Davydova has more than 10 years’ experience of working with Russian and international media. She holds an MA degree in economics. She is Reuters Foundation fellow at the Reuters Institute for the Study of Journalism, Oxford University (2006) and a participant at the Beahrs Environmental Leadership Program (ELP) at the University of California, Berkeley (2012). Since 2008 she has been an observer of the UN Climate negotiation process (UNFCCC). Ms Davydov teaches at the Faculty of Journalism, St.Petersburg State University.
Jussi Lassila works as a researcher at the Aleksanteri Institute, Finnish Centre for Russian and Eastern European Studies, at the University of Helsinki. His core areas of expertise are discourse analysis, post-Soviet identity politics and political communication.
On the basis of the doctoral thesis that he defended in 2011, his book “The Quest for an Ideal Youth in Putin’s Russia II: The Search for Distinctive Conformism in the Political Communication of Nashi, 2005-2009” was published by Ibidem Verlag in late 2012. He has published in the journals Demokratizatsiya, Canadian Slavonic Papers, Forum noveishei vostochnoevropeiskoi istorii i kul’tury, and Finnish Review of East European Studies as well as in numerous collected volumes.
Ilya Ferapontov is a space and science reporter in the Russian news agency RIA Novosti. He holds a Master’s degree in Russian philology and cultural studies with main scientific interests in Russian urban folklore and modern subcultures. Mr Ferapontov’s personal experience in journalism started in 2002, when he became a news editor at the political news website Polit.ru. After that, he worked in various media as an editor, staff writer and columnist. He started in RIA Novosti as a newswire editor and became a co-founder of the science news department for the agency in 2008. In a short time, the science news department became a leading science news agency in Russia. The journalists in RIA Novosti Science cover all major scientific events and projects in Russia and abroad, and have personal contacts with thousands of scientists.
