These past years have witnessed an increasing usage of symbols from imaginative entertainment in actual sociopolitical discourse. A good example is the Jolly Roger flag belonging to the One Piece franchise, which is frequently appropriated by Indonesian audiences across online and offline contexts. The current study adopts a qualitative multilayered semiotic-ethnolinguistic analysis to explore the sociocultural signification of the Jolly Roger flag in Indonesian contexts. Using the signification concept developed by Peirce and the associated modules of denotation, connotation, and myth developed by Barthes, the study investigates the representation of the flag both as a device used in the animation and as a transformed sign shaped by ethnolinguistic and sociopolitical interpretation. The study draws on data from 120 texts spread across different social networks, namely Instagram, TikTok, YouTube, and X, and 15 photographic documentations of the flag’s offline public presence. The results show how the Jolly Roger is a complex symbol negotiating identity formation, social critique, and different levels of symbolic defiance. Audience reception indicates a co-mix of playfulness, fan practices, and local sociopolitical readings, thus supporting the understanding that symbolic defiance is always culturally mediated and context-dependent. This research adds to existing debates on the re-interpretation of transnational media symbols using qualitative approaches in semiotic research, ethnolinguistics, and sociopolitics, showing how evocative transnational media symbols can achieve ideological functions in a determined cultural context.
This study investigates youth expectations regarding rural development in the medium- and long-term perspective, based on case studies from selected regions of Russia’s Siberian Federal District (Novosibirsk Oblast, Kemerovo Oblast–Kuzbass, Altai Krai, Republic of Tyva, and Irkutsk Oblast). Youth expectations are considered as a component of public sentiment that may influence the effectiveness of sustainable rural development strategies across different territorial, national, and ethnocultural contexts. The study relies on an integrative framework combining systems analysis and Vladimir Kvint’s concept of strategizing, with empirical data drawn from a 2025 cross-regional, comparative study of focus groups of university students in the Siberian Federal District. The findings reveal a pattern indicating a correlation between the socioeconomic development level of regional economies (including funding, territorial scale, demographic characteristics, and human resources) and young people’s willingness to live in rural areas for personal and professional development. The analysis shows predominantly negative assessments of social infrastructure across the surveyed regions, reflecting the limited attractiveness of rural areas and lifestyles for young people. The main conclusion is that the dominance of either the primary or secondary economic sector is a key determinant of rural attractiveness for young people in the medium- and long-term perspective.
This study examines the dark side of social capital by analyzing how community ties may generate social exclusion and suppress critical community participation through normative pressure. It proposes and empirically tests a “dark pathway” model integrating bonding and bridging social capital, social exclusion, normative pressure, and critical participation within a unified framework. Data were collected through a cross-sectional survey of 450 adult community members across urban (n = 230) and rural (n = 220) contexts. Structural Equation Modeling was employed, with mediation effects estimated using bootstrapping (5,000 resamples). Both the measurement and structural models demonstrated good to excellent fit (CFI > 0.95; TLI > 0.95; RMSEA < 0.05). The results indicate that social exclusion has a strong and statistically significant negative effect on critical participation (β < 0; p < .01). In contrast, bonding and bridging social capital do not exhibit significant direct effects, suggesting that their influence operates through indirect or mediated pathways. Normative pressure functions as a significant mediating mechanism, as indicated by a 95% bootstrap confidence interval that does not include zero. Multi-group analysis further reveals that this indirect pathway is substantially stronger in rural than in urban contexts. These findings challenge the conventional assumption that social capital is inherently beneficial, highlighting instead its context-dependent and potentially exclusionary consequences. The study underscores the importance of relational dynamics, normative constraints, and social context in shaping participatory outcomes.
The empirical analysis in this work presents an interpretation of religious attitudes expressed through the cross-religious (Muslim–Christian) ibadah orang basudara (worship of brothers) ritual held at the Immanuel Church of GPM Amahusu Klasis, Moluccas, Indonesia, on December 2, 2018. Religious symbols played a significant role in the “ibadah orang basudara,” including the chanting of the call to prayer, lafadz Rawi Barzanji, the call to worship, singing hymns of praise, and lighting Advent candles. Symbols included chanting the call to prayer, lafadz Rawi barzanji, and the call to worship, singing hymns of praise, and lighting Advent candles. This article explores phenomenological approaches to understanding Muslim community involvement in cross-religious rituals. The findings indicate that the subjective experiences of the Muslim community’s involvement in cross-religious rituals can be classified as resigned involvement, accepting involvement, diversity, equality, and togetherness. These subjective experiences take the form of participation in the recitation of the chanting of the call to prayer and lafadz Rawi barzanji. The involvement of the Muslim community is motivated by ignorance, entrapment, meeting relationships, acceptance and treatment, proof of identity, and kinship, and the Muslim community interprets their involvement as deviation, regret, and side-by-side experiences. The implication of these results is that the Muslim community’s ritual involvement serves as proof of self-identity, with the hope of building a harmonious relationship.
Despite the rapid expansion of digital public services, their impact on political trust remains theoretically and empirically contested. Drawing on Pierre Bourdieu’s constructivist theory of practice, this article argues that trust should not be understood merely as a reflection of the quality of digital services. Rather, it is conceptualized as an internal component of agents’ practices, where the key factor is not simply digital knowledge or literacy, but the degree of involvement and immersion in digitally mediated social contexts. The study relies on a content analysis of research literature on the digitalization of public services, e-government, and Internet voting in Russia and other national contexts. The findings suggest that the relationship between the digitalization of state–citizen interactions and political trust is indirect. This relationship operates through the following sequence: digitalization of public services → trust environments (formed around specific digital practices) → digital trust culture → practices of political participation → political trust. The effectiveness of this model in contemporary Russia depends on both temporal and spatial factors. The analysis shows that government policy is primarily oriented toward creating “comfortable everyday life” through the widespread implementation of digital technologies. This approach can function as a mechanism for increasing social and political trust. However, given the amorphous and weakly organized nature of Russian society, as well as its social inertia, such effects are likely to be significant but short-term.
This article investigates the rise of digital protectionism within the regulatory framework shaped by surveillance capitalism and digital sovereignty. Drawing on Karl Polanyi’s concept of the double movement, I argue that digital protectionist instruments such as data localization mandates, restrictions on cross-border data flows and tech nativization represent attempts to re-embed digital markets within the context of digital sovereignty. On the other hand, these measures also tend to reinforce, rather than eliminate, data exploitation processes at the core of surveillance capitalism, thereby creating a regulatory paradox: Sovereignty claims enable the institutionalization of domestic surveillance as part of digital disembeddedness. Throughout the article, I adopt an interdisciplinary conceptual approach, grounded in economic sociology and political economy, to examine how sovereignty-based protectionist instruments can restrict data extraction while simultaneously enabling exploitative domestic surveillance. Finally, this article concludes that sustaining a fairer digital economy requires embedding data relations in enforceable rights and social values; otherwise, digital protectionism may reproduce the exact structures it seeks to oppose.
Adolescence is a critical stage of identity formation and social adaptation, in which coping with stress plays a key role in well-being. This study examines how ethnic identity and regional context shape adolescents’ coping strategies in multicultural urban environments. The sample included 306 adolescents aged 12–17 from two Russian cities with distinct sociocultural settings. Descriptive statistics and two-way analysis of variance (ANOVA) with post hoc tests were conducted. Findings revealed that ethnicity was primarily associated with emotion-focused coping strategies, including focusing on emotions, turning to religion, and humor. Regional context showed pronounced associations with problem-focused and socially embedded strategies, such as active coping, seeking support, as well as behavioral disengagement. Adolescents occupying ethnic minority positions demonstrated more heterogeneous coping repertoires, combining avoidance-oriented strategies (e.g., distraction and social distraction) with context-sensitive adaptive strategies, including humor and seeking social support. In contrast, ethnic majority-group adolescents tended to rely on more stable patterns of problem-focused coping. Overall, the results indicate that adolescent coping is shaped not only by individual factors but also by sociocultural context. The study contributes to understanding adolescent resilience in culturally diverse settings and informs the development of culturally sensitive school-based support programs.
The project-based activities of U.S. educational, cultural, and research institutions played a crucial role in shaping international knowledge infrastructure during the latter half of the twentieth century. After the end of World War II and during the ensuing Cold War, these projects became instruments for creating networks, norms, and institutional structures that underpinned global human development. Drawing on Petar Bojanić’s theory of institutions, this article examines the institutional logic of U.S. international projects, emphasizing their dynamics and the production of enduring social spaces. Through a critical analysis of historical scholarship and available statistical data, the study highlights the mechanisms of institutional stabilization, including the formation of actors and regulatory frameworks. The findings demonstrate that U.S. organizations such as IIE, USIA, AMIDEAST, and USAID not only executed programs but also actively constructed the scaffolding for global knowledge networks, influencing international mobility, cultural exchange, and the circulation of human capital. This research contributes to scholarship on international education and institutional formation, offering insights into the long-term infrastructural impact of human development projects.
This article analyzes linguistic taboo in the societies of East Nusa Tenggara (NTT), Indonesia, as a patterned system of speech regulation rather than merely an inventory of prohibited words. Drawing on comparative analysis of published ethnographic and linguistic sources across Manggarai, Nage-Keo, Lio, Sikka, Lamaholot, Timor, Belu, Sumba, Rote, and Sabu, the study identifies recurrent linguistic mechanisms that structure taboo practices. These include morphosyntactically encoded naming prohibitions, anthroponymic replacement strategies in affinal relations, stratification of ritual registers, and genre-bound control of origin discourse. The findings demonstrate that taboo operates through systematic constraints on reference, register, and speaker entitlement, forming a structured distribution of speaking rights. Interpreted through theories of symbolic power and mimetic differentiation, this distribution can be understood as a linguistically instantiated architecture of power that organizes genealogical hierarchy and regulates access to prestige-bearing speech forms. By restricting access to names, ritual lexicon, and origin narratives, taboo maintains social differentiation and reduces conditions under which symbolic rivalry may intensify. Methodologically, the article proposes a replicable framework for analyzing taboo as a linguistic configuration observable across communities. The study contributes to broader debates on language, authority, and social transformation by showing how changing communicative environments may reshape regimes of speech legitimacy in kinship-based societies.
Dominant sociological theories of social change, from modernization to institutional analysis, primarily address cognitive, economic, and structural factors, often overlooking the bodily, sensory dimension of transformation. This creates a conceptual gap in understanding how macro-social shifts permeate the level of personhood and vice versa. This article proposes to bridge this gap by developing a comprehensive conceptual framework based on sensory sociology. It argues that social change is not merely a structural or ideological process but a profound sensory reconfiguration. The article begins by tracing the intellectual roots of sensory sociology and its critique of Cartesian dualism. It then sequentially articulates and elaborates four key generative mechanisms that link sensory experience and social change: sensory socialization (the inculcation of norms through the senses), sensory control (the materialization of power in sensory environments), technological transformation of the sensory landscape (the restructuring of perception by new tools), and collective sensory action (the forging of solidarity through shared sensation). Each mechanism is illustrated with historical and contemporary case studies, ranging from the disciplinary regimes of industrial modernity to the digital sensorium of social media and the embodied politics of contemporary social movements. Furthermore, the article addresses methodological innovations required for such an analysis, including a new set of empirical indicators for each mechanism, and responds to potential criticisms. By synthesizing a wide array of interdisciplinary research, the framework demonstrates that integrating the sensory dimension yields a more holistic, dynamic, and materially grounded model of social change. In this model, society shapes the senses through history, technology, and power, and collectively altered sensory experience, in turn, becomes an engine for reshaping society. The proposed framework offers not only a theoretical advancement but also a concrete analytical toolkit for researching contemporary transformational processes, urging sociologists to take the sensuous, embodied fabric of social life seriously.
Ritual proverbs play a central role in the Teing Hang ritual of Manggarai, Eastern Indonesia. However, their theological and catechetical significance remains largely unexplored. Existing scholarship has predominantly approached Manggarai ritual from anthropological and linguistic perspectives, leaving a significant gap in understanding how these proverbs function as mediums of faith formation within the community. This article addresses this gap by examining how proverbs in the Teing Hang ritual operate as catechetical pathways that internalize religious beliefs and communal values. Data were collected through participant observation, semi-structured interviews, and document analysis of Church teachings on catechesis and inculturation. The findings show that the ritual proverbs function as a form of lived catechesis through five interconnected roles: transmitting core elements of faith, mediating the inculturation of Christian teaching within local tradition, nurturing ecological consciousness, reinforcing communal and moral formation, and revealing pedagogical challenges across generations. By integrating catechetical theology, inculturation theory, and anthropological linguistics, the study argues that Manggarai ritual proverbs constitute an indigenous pedagogical framework through which faith is embodied, remembered, and transmitted. This study contributes to catechetical theology and inculturation studies by demonstrating the potential of Indigenous ritual language as a dynamic resource for contextual faith formation in culturally diverse societies.
The article explores the key stages of online news video development, together with the primary trends of online news video research. Through the analysis of Digital News reports compiled by Reuters Institute for the Study of Journalism, we distinguish three major stages of the development of online news videos: the formation stage in 2013–2015, the first platform shift in 2016–2020, and the second platform shift from 2021 to the present time. The period prior to 2013, we suggest, be recognized as the premises stage. We test this model in the context of the Russian media system. Further analysis of all the online news video-related publications over the past 25 years in major international and Russian databases shows that research directions reflect the main trends of the three stages of online news video development. We conclude our observations by stating that the proposed framework is supported by data from Western, Asian, and some Southern contexts, showing remarkable parallels despite different media systems. Future research should test it in other regions.
Well-being and mental health are considered to be fundamentally influenced by implicit, global, and stable beliefs about the world and oneself. These beliefs shape a person’s perception of certain life situations, their attitudes toward these situations, and the behavioral strategies they choose. This study aims to ascertain the precise nature of the relationship between spiritual well-being and its components and basic beliefs. A total of 959 Russian-speaking respondents aged 14 to 72 were included in the study sample. Spiritual well-being that includes two subscales—religious and existential well-being—was assessed using the Spiritual Well-Being Scale by Paloutzian and Ellison, as adapted by Bakushkin and Ershova (2025). Basic beliefs—Benevolence of the World, Luck, Justice, Beliefs about Control, Self-Worth—were assessed using the World Assumptions Scale by Janoff-Bulman, as adapted by Padun and Kotelnikova (2008). Along with these scales, mathematical and statistical data processing methods were employed. For religious well-being, Luck showed the greatest predictive power. In the multivariate model, the negative influence of Beliefs about Control increased. For existential well-being, the Luck, Benevolence of the World, and Justice subscales served as positive predictors, explaining 51.9% of the variance in the dependent variable. For spiritual well-being, these same predictors explained 42.4% of the variance. Results showed that the Beliefs about Control subscale was a negative predictor of spiritual well-being. Meanwhile, the Self-Worth scale tended to be negatively associated with spiritual well-being. The models demonstrated the greatest explanatory power for existential (29.2%) and spiritual (26.9%) well-being, while the contribution to religious well-being (19.2%) was less pronounced. These findings could inform the development of spiritually integrated counselling and meaning-centered interventions for Russian-speaking clients.
Foreign language (FL) learning is influenced by both behavioral and motivational factors, with beliefs, proficiency, and social identity shaping learners’ perceptions, self-concept, and intergroup dynamics. This study investigates how FL proficiency influences beliefs and social perceptions about individuals involved in FL learning. The aim of the study is to identify differences in these beliefs between low- and high-proficiency FL learners, focusing on factors such as sociability, vitality, and intergroup bias. A semantic differential instrument was administered to 180 participants (90 low-proficiency and 90 high-proficiency FL learners) in Russia who rated individuals associated with various FL learning roles. Principal Component Analysis and pooled data methods were used to analyze the underlying dimensions of beliefs, while Spearman correlation coefficients examined relationships between constructs. Results revealed significant differences in belief structures: high-proficiency FL participants perceived high- and low-proficiency FL roles as more friendly, sociable, and active compared to low-proficiency FL participants. High-proficiency FL learners also exhibited in-group favoritism toward high-proficiency FL roles and out-group bias against low-proficiency FL roles. The findings suggest that FL proficiency shapes social perceptions, with high-proficiency FL learners appearing to hold more integrated and polarized views. This study highlights the dynamic nature of language learning beliefs and their implications for intergroup relations. The results underscore the need for growth mindset-based language education, anti-bias interventions to counter negative stereotypes of migrants with low language proficiency, strategies to mitigate linguistic elitism among advanced learners, and targeted support to help low-proficiency learners develop integrated cognitive frameworks about language learning.
The present study aimed to validate the Greek version of the Social Physique Anxiety Scale (SPAS-7) in the current Greek dance context. Gender and dance type were also examined as factors differentiating Social Physique Anxiety (SPA). Participants were 95 male and 320 female dancers representing Greek traditional, classical ballet, contemporary, and Latin dance types. The Greek version of SPAS-7 was used to collect the research data. Statistical analyses of the data included descriptive and inferential statistics, Exploratory Factor Analysis (EFA), Confirmatory Factor Analysis (CFA), internal consistency and structural validity assessments, independent-samples t-test, and one-way ANOVA. Results revealed that: (a) the EFA identified a single factor (SPA) which accounted for 66.50% of the total variance, (b) the CFA confirmed the unidimensional structure of the scale, (c) the composite reliability and average variance extracted values demonstrated high reliability and convergent validity, (d) gender was a significant factor for SPA differentiation, with females reporting higher scores than males, and (e) participants in classical ballet showed the highest SPA levels, in contrast to participants in Greek traditional dance, who showed the lowest levels. It is concluded that the Greek version of SPAS-7 can be confidently used in research, while gender and dance type are factors differentiating SPA levels.
In this study, Charentsavan (Kotayk province, Armenia) is considered a bottom-up Soviet industrial city, whose material infrastructure and symbolic identity were created simultaneously through industrialization, mass housing construction, and cultural myth-making. The study explores how the “new city” arose and what makes Charentsavan noteworthy not only in the Armenian context. The research adopts a micro-historical and semiotic approach. The city is considered a semiotic object. The toponymy (Lusavan/Charentsavan), naming practices, and urban narratives were analyzed as tools of symbolic construction. The empirical basis includes archival visual materials documenting Soviet-era construction and everyday urban spaces. Furthermore, literary and essayistic texts in Armenian were studied, particularly the anthology Gangraher Tghayi Kaghaky: Aknarkner Yev Banasteghtsut’yunner [Curly Boy’s City: Essays and Poems] (1987), as well as the collection of memoirs (2007). This corpus of texts was read using Peirce’s discursive analysis and semiotics, which is based on the relationship between the representative, the interpretant, and the object. Additionally, a demographic analysis of the context was conducted. Industrial data was used to reconstruct the logic of rapid urban growth and housing construction. The analysis revealed that Soviet Charentsavan was shaped by a planned industrial and urban structure, including factories, transportation, and residential areas, as well as a mythological foundation. This is evident in the 1967 renaming of Lusavan in honor of the rehabilitated poet Yeghishe Charents. This toponymic shift altered the ideological codes of modernity, labor, and collective memory, uniting a diverse population under an industrial civic identity. By providing English-speaking researchers with a Soviet Armenian corpus of scientifically based, propagandistic texts about the city, the study broadens the comparative discussion about Soviet mass housing and urban heritage. Thus, this study demonstrates how industrial projects create sustainable symbols of the city, beyond just architectural forms.
Steven Pinker. (2025). When Everyone Knows That Everyone Knows...: Common Knowledge and the Mysteries of Money, Power, and Everyday Life. Scribner.Simon Winchester. (2023). Knowing What We Know: The Transmission of Knowledge: From Ancient Wisdom to Modern Magic. Harper.Ian McEwan. (2025). What We Can Know. Knopf.
In this research, comprising three studies, we aimed to explore the psychological dynamics underlying the misperceptions of female terrorism, suggesting that female terrorists are often judged as being less motivated by idealistic or politico-religious reasons. Exploratory Factor analysis in Study 1 (N = 109) revealed that, in the eyes of the observers, religious and political motives of female terrorism formed a single dimension. Study 2 (N = 825) and Study 3 (N = 695) employed Structural Equation Modelling to examine the role of male collective narcissism as a predictor and resistance to programs addressing female terrorism as a consequence. Findings from Studies 2 and 3 consistently demonstrated that male collective narcissism significantly predicts the misperceived motives of female terrorism and resistance to related programs (i.e., counter-terrorism, deradicalization). Furthermore, the misperceived motives of female terrorism mediate the relationship between male collective narcissism and resistance to these programs. Extending Study 2, Study 3 revealed that the perception of illegitimacy surrounding such programs plays a critical role in explaining why misperceived motives of female terrorism resulted in increased resistance. These results underscore the importance of addressing the psychological roots of societal resistance to combat terrorism involving women effectively.
Child labor remains a global challenge with devastating effects on children, particularly in sub-Saharan Africa, the region with the highest prevalence of the practice. Unfortunately, efforts to curb this problem in the region have yielded few results. This study used a binary logistic regression model to examine the effect of child attributes and household socioeconomic characteristics on child labor outcomes in some selected sub-Saharan African countries, using interaction terms to explain the conditional relationship among correlates. To achieve this objective, the study used data from the UNICEF Multiple Indicators Cluster Survey Round 6 (2017–2021) across 10 sub-Saharan African countries: Nigeria, Sierra Leone, Togo, DR Congo, Madagascar, Malawi, Sao Tome and Principe, Ghana, Guinea Bissau, and Chad. The result revealed, contrary to mainstream ideas, that child’s educational attainment up to secondary education increases child labor by 2.2% in the selected sub-Saharan African countries while increase in child’s age increases child labor by 3.5%. Household size was also observed to increase child labor by 0.2% but increasing mother’s education to at least primary level and higher wealth status reduced child labor by 1.1% and 4.7% respectively. Even though the marginal effect of the interactions could not be determined, the logistic regression result revealed that the interaction of age with gender and maternal education with poverty are significant in influencing child labor. This study recommended the promotion of girl-child education, implementation of poverty eradication programs and policies, promotion of population control measures, and the introduction of child protection as a subject of study in schools to drive behavioral and social changes.
