As ICA gears up on its internationalization agenda, we have the opportunity to hear from our Russian colleague Olga Leontovich about the status of communication studies in Russia. This essay was presented in one of the plenary sessions of the 2008 ICA conference, and engages with the intersections of communication and social impact. Olga introduces us to some of the key concepts and research strands in current Russian scholarship. She also offers an overview of the initiatives that are taking place in Russia in the field of Communication Studies as it continues its development. Her piece not only provides insights into the work that has been going on in Russia, but it also demonstrates the importance of internationalizing ICA and the opportunities that lie ahead of ICA.

When I was preparing for the 2008 ICA conference, I asked myself: What is social impact? Are we speaking about society having an impact on Communication Studies (CS), or the development of Communication Studies bringing about social change?

And what is social change? Is it a change in institutional life? In the educational environment? In the leading research trends? Or also in our minds? In the way we view life, relationships and the world around us?

In light of an ongoing debate about the ways to fashion our discipline, all those questions are important.

I intend a) to speak about the present state of Russian Communication Studies: b) reflect on where we are going and c) discuss how Communication Studies can bring about social change in Russia.

While in the West the status of Communication Studies is universally acknowledged, in Russia this discipline has yet to be established, and its boundaries are fuzzy and indistinct. In many ways, Russian CS is covering the same route as originally in the West. The only problem is, as Winston Churchill put it, in Russia there are directions, not roads.

To begin with, we don't have a generation of scholars trained in Communication Studies - we have all grown out of different disciplines, such as Linguistics, Psychology, Sociology, Computer Science, and others. We are still torn between those fields. This is like multiple voices speaking different languages. Hence the eclecticism, discordance, absence of common methodological grounds and conceptual approaches. Russian Communication Studies lacks a clearly defined theoretical basis, unified terminology and prerequisites which would allow scholars to understand each other, while enjoying the benefits of interdisciplinary approaches.

Another stumbling block is the question: 

* Which definition of Communication should be adopted? In many studies, scholars declare modern approaches, but in reality they still stick to the linear model of Communication as a process of mere transmission of information rather than a mode of human existence.

Another question:

* Should Communication Studies be a theoretically or practically oriented discipline? It only seems that these positions can be easily reconciled. For Russians it denotes a clash of the pragmatic Western approach and the Eastern tradition aimed at the understanding of a human's inner world and the meaning of life.

However, it would be overly simplistic to think that Russian Communication Studies is merely copying the Western achievements. It would be naïve to expect that the discipline can be imported from the West and planted on Russian soil - it is fashioned in our own, specific way. Russia can boast of a long history of humanitarian research, in many ways overlapping the Western approaches or even leading the way in certain areas.

Given that Russia is a big country, I'll be unable to discuss all the research. I'll try to outline the main tendencies, which in itself is a difficult task.

On the map of Russia, I'd like to highlight the points where the development of Communication Studies is the most evident. These are Moscow and St. Petersburg, our two capitals, and also Tver, Voronezh, Volgograd, Saratov, Yekaterinburg, Tomsk, and Irkutsk, with their strong research traditions. I would add to this list Rostov-on-Don, the city where Irina Rozina, the current president of the Russian Communication Association (RCA), makes great efforts to promote the discipline.

I'd like to point out specifically Russian approaches reflected in carefully crafted and thoroughly researched works in the study of the relationship between communication and the mind (Zimnyaya 1993; Arutyunova 1995; Ufimtseva 1995, 1996; Gasparov 1996; Krasnykh 1998; Gak 2000), and in the study of the mechanisms of understanding (Demyankov 1985; Bogin 1986; Zalevskaya 1988, 1992; Znakov 1994).

Important areas are psychological and linguistic conceptology (Likhachev, Stepanov, Sternin, Karasik, Vorkachev, Slyshkin). In the Russian language, we use two terms equivalent to "concept" - we distinguish between 'ponyatiye' - notion which reflects the most significant features of an object - and 'kontsept'- a cluster of cultural knowledge in people's minds, a "bunch" of conceptions, associations, and experiences accompanying a word (Stepanov 1997: 40). "Kontsept" is an important phenomenon and product of culture. The conceptual space of a particulate person and a culture in general is organized into a conceptosphere (the term coined by D. Likhachev), primarily characterized by the ability to "create senses" collectively within a culture. Conceptology contributes to the understanding of human cognition and intercultural communication theory. Numerous studies have resulted in the creation of new types of dictionaries and anthologies of concepts discussing such important notions as power, democracy, freedom, challenge, native country, and others.

Another area is the investigation of communicative personality, linguistic personology and typology (Likhachev, Karaulov 1987, 1989; Bogin 1984; Likhachev 1993, Apresyan 1995; Kitaigorodskaya 1995; 1999; Karasik 2007), e. g. discussing the communicative behavior of a typical "Russian intellectual," "cowboy," "superhero," "Don Juan, and others.

Great attention is given to research on the semiotics of political discourse. In terms of social change - without getting into the discussion of political issues, I'd like to point out that in the recent decade, our government has dramatically changed in their attitude towards communication skills. We have moved from unintelligiable Brezhnev and indisctinct Yeltsin to the political leaders for whom communication skills are of great value. The role of communication specialists and image-makers has grown dramatically. Isn't it an example of social impact?

I'd also like to name some randomly selected socially important projects. In the city of Voronezh my colleague Iosif Sternin managed to convince the local government to introduce the basics of Communication Studies in all the middle and high schools and did a lot to develop the program. The Russian Academy of Science worked out a program of training ethnic tolerance in schoolchildren. The project "Healthy Russia 2020" is aimed at interactive training of doctors and building up international partnerships in health care. Volgograd State Pedagogical University where I come from has been teaching joint interactive courses on intercultural communication with American partner institutions via videoconferencing since 2003. The list can go on.

It's hard to predict the development of Communication Studies in Russia - as somebody said, "Russia is predictable in the sense that it will continue to be unpredictable." (Marshall Goldman). However, I'm optimistic about it.

I have to admit that the participation in this conference allows me to rediscover my own identity as a scholar. We, Russian scholars, still have to become part of the world Communication Studies environment. An international environment, which should include scholars not only from North America and Western Europe but also from other parts of the globe has yet to be created. And the ICA can do a lot to create such an environment.

A Russian proverb says: Water doesn't flow under a lying stone. We have to work for social impact. I do hope that Russian scholars will be able to take an active part in the work of ICA and contribute to its internationalization. We'll continue to find new and enlightening avenues through which to develop the role of Communication Studies.