Reading and translating.

· What is informational society?

· Do you agree with the statement, that we get not the information, but the informational product? How do you understand it?

Read thetextbelow, translate it and learn the new words:

Text 1

Informational society

A socially-inclusive information society will not come about by itself, nor can it be brought about solely by the efforts of information workers. How do we develop and share a vision of such a society? How do we identify and overcome the barriers to the fulfillment of that vision? The information society implies potential changes in the ways in which people share information, send and receive messages, learn, gossip and interact. Network technologies such as the internet and mobile telephones are affecting the ecology of relationships. Transactions with authorities are becoming faster and more direct. Organizations are becoming ‘flatter’ and find it easier to work in partnership, more easily setting up virtual teams for particular projects. The potential for change can be bewildering and our understanding is subject to hype and extravagant claims. The risks of exclusion from these developments, at the local level, among specific social groups, and between nations, seem threatening. But the potential to exploit information and communication technologies, to reduce inequalities and enhance the quality of life seems beyond question. This seminar explores the nature of social exclusion and seeks to develop an understanding of the contribution of information and communication in promoting the conditions of inclusion. It will examine the relationship of information and communication to participative democracy; and considers both the role and skills of citizens, and the issues for policy. Topics covered include: Understanding exclusion, promoting inclusion civil society, social cohesion and diversity. Information, communication and community neighborhoods: communication and ‘place’ among communities of interest. Citizenship in the information society, information and democratic participation skills for the information society: ‘information capability’ policy for the information society: government strategies. The information society and global forces. The seminar has been designed to ensure active participation and involvement, and participants will be invited to share their own experience at several points in the program. Participant profile. The seminar is intended to attract people who can help bring about change, at local, regional or national level. It is designed to be of benefit to anyone involved in communication within a context of social inclusion. These could include practitioners, local government officers who are planning services, policy officials, information managers, and media representatives, members of self-help groups and researchers.

(From: “Information, communication and participative democracy”, Cardiff, 26–31 January 2004)

Information age spurs economic globalization.

The advent of innovative computer and communications technology toward the end of the 20th century ushered in a new era dominated by information rather than industry. Just as land, labor, and machinery had been the capital of an industrial age, information became a new form of capital in modern business. During the 1970s and 1980s, a number of new telecommunications advances came into existence, including modern communications satellites. Telephone companies, cable television stations, and other media outlets began using these satellites to transmit data around the world. By the late 1990s, integrated digital networks were being developed to create a global voice, data, text, and video system. At the same time, large computer networks, such as the Internet, permitted modems— devices that transmit data through phone lines—to link individual computers to other computers throughout the world. In 1993, Internet usage exploded when commercial providers were first allowed to sell Internet connections to individuals. These technological advances helped catalyze the growth of the global economy at the end of the 20th century, when international financial networks moved trillions of dollars around the world daily. With the advent of globalization, a nation's economy became more connected with and dependent on those in other countries around the world. For example, when several Asian countries faced economic turmoil in the late 1990s, the economic impact was felt in Western nations at the corporate and individual levels.

(From: Britannica Student Encyclopedia 2004 Children's Edition. 1994-2003)

The concept of interdependence.

Interdependence is a fuzzy term used in a variety of conflicting ways like other political words such as nationalism or imperialism. Statesmen and analysts have different motives when they use political words. The statesman wants as many people marching behind his or her banner as possible. Political leaders blur meanings and try to create a connotation of a common good: "We are all in the same boat together, therefore we must cooperate, therefore follow me." The analyst, on the other hand, makes distinctions to understand the world better. She distinguishes questions of good and bad from more and less. The analyst may point out the boat we are all in may be heading for one person's port but not another's, or that one person is doing all the rowing while another steers or has a free ride. In other words, interdependence can be used both ideologically as well as analytically, and we should be aware of such different usage. As a political verb, interdependence is conjugated "I depend; you depend; we de­pend; they rule."

As an analytical word, interdependence refers to situations in which actors or events in different parts of a system affect each other. Simply put, interde­pendence means mutual dependence. Such a situation is neither good nor had in itself, and there can be more or less of it. In personal relations, interdepen­dence is summed up by the marriage vow in which each partner is interde­pendent with another "for richer, for poorer, for better, or for worse.' And interdependence among nations sometimes means richer, sometimes poorer, sometimes for better, sometimes for worse. In the eighteenth century, Jean-Jacques Rousseau pointed out that along with interdependence comes friction and conflict. His "solution" was isolation and separation. But this is seldom possible in the modern world. When countries try isolation, like Albania or Myanmar (formerly Burma), it comes at enormous economic cost. It is not easy for nations to divorce the rest of the world.

Exercises:

1. Give Russian equivalents to the following words and phrases: A socially-inclusive information society, to share a vision, to overcome the barriers, to imply potential changes, network technologies, the ecology of relationships, setting up virtual teams, to exploit information and communication technologies, to reduce inequalities, enhance the quality of life, promoting the conditions of inclusion, participative democracy, understanding exclusion, communications technology, to transmit data around the world, through phone lines, to face economic turmoil, blur meaning.

2. Give English equivalents to the following words and phrases

разделять точку зрения, преодолевать препятствия, подразумевать потенциальные изменения, сократить неравенство, гражданское общество, предавать информацию, использование Интернета, экология отношений, на местном уровне, уменьшать неравенство, гражданское общество, инновационные технологии, пользователи, стать зависимым от, взаимозависимость.

3. Using a dictionary, find out the derivatives of the words:

to depend, to distinguish, to include, equal, globe, to connect.

4. Make up sentences with the above-mentioned words:

5. Define the main notions you’ve come across in the text in bold type.

6. Do you agree with the underlined statements?

7. Ask problem questions.

8. Summarize the information you have just read.

9. Discussion Advantages and disadvantages of the modern informational society.

Text 2

Globalization and Socio-Cultural Crisis in Russia

(By Т. V. Evgenyeva)

Read thetextbelow, translate it and learn the new words:

Normally, debate on globalization emphasizes its economic aspect. However, this cannot always account for the emotional reaction of consciousness not only in those countries where the economic consequences of globalization are foreseen as negative, but also in the prospering countries in the West. The mass consciousness is unable to rationally estimate the pros and cons of globalization process in the economic sphere. Its reaction is spontaneous and is based on causes that cannot be always clearly understood.

In this connection politic-psychological approach to analyzing the consequences or challenges of globalization is likely to be productive. The central category in such analysis can be a concept of "an image of the world". An image of the world is a whole system of man's notions of the surrounding natural and social reality and his place in it. A whole noncontradictory image of the world is an essential basis for identifying oneself as a personality.

This conception having been elaborated within the framework of psychology (it first appeared in A. Leontyev's works) includes psychological as well as cultural components.

Image of the world which is present both in individual and mass consciousness is formed on society's cultural and historical tradition. It is one of major mechanisms for maintaining group identities of various social communities, including the national and state ones, and in the context of political process it becomes a foundation for political orientations and political conduct of individuals as well as large groups of people. Thus, the image of the world category can play a leading role in the analysis of political processes.

A destruction of one's customary image of the world forming in some or other culture provokes usually a negative emotional reaction in mass consciousness. It is in this way that the process of globalization is perceived by mass consciousness arousing a feeling of danger which cannot be dearly understood.

In today's Russia the searching for the answers to the challenges of globalization is complicated by the fact that Russia has been developing over the past decade in conditions of socio-cultural crisis, i.e. in conditions the social structure and society's systems of cultural symbols supporting its identity have been simultaneously destroyed.

A person's self-identification in the Soviet period was based on an image of the world which has been shaping for a long time, i.e. on a system of socio-cultural and political myths determining an individual's perception of surrounding natural and social reality as well as his own place in it. The image of the world of a soviet citizen generally did not contradict the basic cultural stereotypes which were formed in the Russian mass consciousness over Russia's entire history. Being mythological by its nature, this image, nevertheless, used to stabilize, and rather successfully at that, people's conciseness and behavior.

The destruction of the Soviet image of the world which started by perestroika and which was especially intensive after 1991, has led to shattering the entire system of people's notions and judgments. The values and norms which would determine the process of an individual's self-identification suddenly changed their meaning and commonly recognized objective proved to be pointless. The destruction of a person's self-identification as a Soviet man with no adequate substitution for it resulted in what modern scholars term as identity crisis including a loss of personality's self-identity (a loss of perception of one's whole "ego"), the collapse of the system of personal meanings (a loss of the meaning of life) and the narrow wing of active image of space and time.

In a critical situation mass consciousness ranges, as a rule, from an absolute passiveness, escapism, escaping from society to different sub-culture groups and sometimes committing suicide to non-motivated aggression which is often revealed as a constant search for "the image of an enemy" which can be represented by someone from other racial, ethnic, confessional and political communities.

Hence, the peculiarity of the Russian situation is that Russian society has to look for answers to globalization in conditions when it by itself is actively searching for its national and state identity (which provokes constant debates about the national idea for Russia), i.e. a new integral image of the world. In other words, society is seeking for an answer to the question "Who are we?" while it is being offered to join into a wider global "we" for whom our community's "we" and the subject-matter of our exhausting pursuits do not bear any meaning and sense at all. A typical reaction of mass consciousness to this controversy can be either an attempt, sometimes an unconscious one, to withdraw, to forget about the problem or aggressively oppose it.

Thus, searching for an adequate response to globalization is impossible without an answer to the question about one's own identity. This answer can be given by Russia only on condition that it succeeds in formulating its own integral and noncontraversial image of the world, an image of its own.

Exercises:

a. Give Russian equivalents to the following words and phrases

To emphasize the economic aspect, consequences of globalization, to estimate the pros and cons, politic-psychological approach, surrounding natural and social reality, noncontradictory image of the world, to elaborate the conception, a foundation for political orientation and political conduct, a destruction of the customary image, to provoke a negative reaction,

recognized objective, escapism, non-motivated aggression, to bear a meaning and sense

b. Give English equivalents to the following words and phrases

эмоциональная реакция, экономические последствия, плюсы и минусы глобализации, спонтанная реакция, психологические и культурные компоненты, массовое самосознание, формировать образ, мифологическое по природе, понятия и суждения, адекватная замена.

c. Define the main idea of the text.

d. Do you agree with the underlined statements?

e. Ask problem questions.

f. Comment on the peculiarity of the Russian situation.

g. What is the author’s attitude to the topic?

h. What is your viewpoint on the problem?

Text 3

Polarity and Peace.

Read thetextbelow, translate it and learn the new words:

In the wake of the Cold War and the disintegration of its bipolar structure, the long-standing debate has intensified about which type of polarity distribution—unipolar, bipolar, or multipolar—is the most stable.

One interpretation holds that "There were periods when an 'equal distribution of power between contenders actually ex­isted... but these were the exception rather than the rule: Closer examination reveals that they were periods of a war, not peace" (Organski 1968). If this view is accurate, then peace will occur when one hegemonic state acquires enough power to deter others' expansionist ambitions. If we think of the United States as the hegemonic power in the post-World War II system, this seemingly plausible conclusion about the stability of unipolar systems does not bode well for peace in the future. If present trends continue, the so-called "unipolar moment" of unchallenged U.S. hegemony (Krauthammer 1991) will pass and, without a dominant global leader, the twenty-first century will be increasingly disorderly.

In contrast, a second school of thought (e.g., Waltz 1964) maintains that bipolar systems are the most stable. According to this line of reasoning, stability, ironically, results from "the division of all nations into two camps [because it] raises the costs of war to such a high level that all but the most funda­mental conflicts are resolved without resort to violence", (Bueno de Mesquita 1975). Under such stark simplicities and balanced symmetries, the two leading rivals 'have' incentives to manage crises so that they do not escalate to war.

Those who believe that a bipolar world is inherently more stable than either its unipolar or multipolar counterparts draw ' support from the fact that in the bipolar environment of the; 1950s, when the threat of war was endemic, major war did not occur. Extrapolating, these observers (e.g.; Lyiearsheimer; 1990) reason that because now a new multipolar distribution of global power makes it impossible to run the world from one or two centers, disorder will result:

It is rather basic. So long as there were only two great powers, like two big battleships clumsily and cautiously circling; each other, confrontations—or accidents—were easier to; avoid. Now, with the global lake more crowded with ships of varying sizes, fueled by different ambitions and piloted with different degrees of navigational’ skill, the odds of collisions become far: greater. (House 1989, AI0)

A third school of thought argues that multipolar systems are the least war-prone. While the reasons differ, advocates share the belief that polarized systems that either concentrate power, as in a unipolar system, or that divide the world two antagonistic blocs, as in a bipolar system, promote struggles for dominance (see Thompson 1988. Morgqnthau.1985). The peace-through-multipolar school perceives multipolar» systems as stable because they encompass a larger number of autonomous actors, giving rise to more potential alliance partners. This is seen as pacifying because it is essential to counterbalancing a would-be aggressor, as shifting alliances can occur only when there are multiple power centers. (Deutsch and Singer 1964).

Abstract deductions and historical analogies can lead to contradictory conclusions as the logic underlying these three inconsistent interpretations illustrates. The future will determine which of these rival theories is the most accurate.

Exercises:

1. Give Russian equivalents to the following words and phrases:

In the wake of, polarity distribution, to reveal, to deter ambitions, plausible conclusion, unchallenged hegemony, to result from smth, to mange crisis, to draw support, to share the belief, to promote the struggle for dominance, multipolar system, potential alliance partner, a would-be aggressor, abstract deduction, historical analogy.

2. Give English equivalents to the following words and phrase

однополярный, биполярный, многополярный, гегемония, стабильность системы, ведущие соперники, угроза войны, распределение власти, разделять мнение, союзники, существенно, историческая аналогия, противоречивый вывод.

3. Find key sentences in the text.

4. Enumerate the types of polarity distribution and comment on them.

5. Express your own idea on the following:

If present trends continue, the so-called "unipolar moment" of unchallenged U.S. hegemony will pass and, without a dominant global leader, the twenty-first century will be increasingly disorderly.

6. Suggest historical analogy to support the theory of multipolar systems.

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