Should social scientists try to communicate their ideas to the public? Especially when what is ‘normal’ to a social scientist (critical and evidence-based thinking) is diametrically opposed to the need for journalists to trade in platitudes, sensationalism*, and an often-mistaken idea about what constitutes ‘common sense’?
Should scholars patiently, dispassionately try to stick ‘to the facts’, to their furrow? Or should they, on the contrary, ride the wave? Offer disruptive or sensationalist takes as a ‘weapon of the weak’? This question is key to the current conundrum of how progressive political actors can break through the wall created by the complete capture of the mainstream media by reactionaries. Should we be more like Mamdani?
This conundrum is not new of course. Sociologists were writing in the 1990s about the way media may serve to stifle substantive debate, marginalize critical perspectives, engage in ‘invisible censorship’ [opens as a pdf]. In the 2000s they discussed how to balance credibility and persuasive authority in public sociology with its commitment to progressive impact.
That said, we have two provocative examples of ‘public sociology’ this week which both show how much more interesting the (liberal) Russian media is than – for example – the moribund anglophone one. In one very long discussion, a sociologist talks at length about the complexities of how Russian people react to the war within Russia and the need to use embedded techniques of observation and interlocution to get at them. In the other, a ‘sociologist’ (I’d call him a political theorist) actively derails talk about the Russian elections to emotionally focus on a topic of interest to him – the question of collective versus individual responsibility within an aggressor state from the perspective of the history of international law. In both cases, what’s of interest to me is not so much the substance but the overall strategies and tactics of scientists in dealing with a hostile media.
Konstantin Gaaze chooses the maximally disruptive method – what if what happened to the Germans in August 1945 happened to Russia? ‘Being a citizen of the aggressor state makes you criminally liable for its crimes’. Journalist in response: ‘I don’t get it’. Gaaze (emotionally) – ‘ok, let’s try it without irony… being a citizen of an aggressor state comes with responsibility for that.’ I’m paraphrasing here, but you get the idea of the ‘provocation’ that Gaaze employs. Beyond the provocation, there are two further points of interest: elections as political theatre – meaning, that even sincere oppositional participation may inadvertently be seen as both irrational and complicit because no realistic political agency is generated through voting. Secondly, that focus on the elections distracts from the fact that shadow military mobilization is taking place in a political and institutional set of spaces completely disconnected from parliamentary and legislative activity. By focussing on the elections we are actively contributing to that distraction, distortion, misdirection (misinformativeness?). Why not use ‘theatre’ to try to counter this unhelpful media framing?
Cue a massive negative reaction to the ‘soundbite’ from Gaaze about ‘criminality’ of Russian residency in the broader online space. One person commented:
Konstantin may have been attempting to provide a legal basis for the concept of political guilt à la Karl Jaspers whereby anyone belonging to a political community bears responsibility for that community’s actions. However, according to Jaspers, this responsibility is not legal in nature; rather, it entails an inescapable obligation to face the consequences and participate in the process of rebuilding. The problem, it seems to me, is that Konstantin Gaaze appealed specifically to the legal aspect of the matter (labelling it “unlawful”), whereas international law does not support this view.
Another said:
Yet another attempt to shift the Overton window toward imposing collective guilt. At the same time, it is an attempt to absolve oneself of “guilt”- after all, if you shout loud enough, the pro-Ukraine crowd might not piss on you for speaking Russian. Then again, they don’t need a reason.
***
Oleg Zhuravlev – a member of Public Society Lab – offers an interesting contrast. He’s very used to trying to communicate sociological ideas to the public and policy audience. With Katerina Gordeeva on her YouTube channel (2 million subs), he has space and time to sketch out what his collective does: ethnographic engagement and observation within Russia which shows that most people lack a clear, consistent political opinion about the war, implying that traditional opinion polling is not very effective. Individuals oscillate between supporting and criticizing the war, often driven by personal and situational factors rather than coherent ideology. People tend to see the war as an external, almost natural disaster rather than a political event they can influence. Amid widespread uncertainty and fatigue, hope persists in powerful figures – whether Putin, Trump, or even divine forces – to end the conflict.
Is this approach more effective than Gaaze’s? Yes and no. The presumptions and world-view of the liberal upper-middle-class host dictate much of the direction of travel and the framing ‘guilt’, ‘regime legitimacy’, and so on. Having said that, just the addition of time-stamps in the video serve a counter-hegemonic role: somewhat reframing the discussion towards more productive sociological ideas: ‘no such thing as public opinion’; ‘people don’t see any truth in the war’; ‘public politics in Russia is destroyed’; ‘Bourdieu, or not Bourdieu?’ [self-promotion: opens as pdf]. On the other hand, as progressives have long pointed and experienced – trying to communicate through the channels of the mainstream liberal press comes with many problems and compromises. One ends up having to explain and justify alien terms – for example ‘hegemony!’ This looks wonkish and weak at best. It is easy to get derailed in side discussions – like about ethics – which is what happened here to Zhuravlev and co. [obv. Ethics are a really important issue]. And about researcher ‘neutrality’ – which is inconsistently dealt with here. This is always the ‘natural’ disadvantage when ‘soft’, qualitative approaches are being presented.
It’s also easy to get derailed into ‘simplifying’ or adapting one’s purpose to the perceived needs of the platform. So, for example, in this case, Zhuravlev talks about a shift among people from talking to war as unthinkable in 2022, to, now, repeating tropes about it being ‘inevitable’. (I said the same in my last blog). However, here it seems, Zhuravlev might be tempted to extrapolate from isolated examples to a larger sample, which is not what this kind of sociology can do. There are other quibbles one might have (about scientific solidarity, for example) – which is not to criticize Zhuravlev, just to highlight the difficulties in presentation.
Those who find either of the speakers’ personas or positions unpalatable will no doubt find their performances unconvincing. But it seems to me that Pierre Bourdieu’s lessons about a reflexive sociological practice are more and more visible in these kind of presentations – and that is always to be welcomed. For example, in 2022 and even 2023 people would rely on Levada unreflexively. At least now, in 2026, those relying on survey data tend to at least preface their remarks to talk about the problems of polling in wartime. But reflexive sociology is more than this: it avoids dealing with problems as mere abstractions, foregrounds to its audience the fact that science is not a unified creed, but in fact competing ‘spaces of points of view’. Furthermore, it is reflexive because it brings critique to the field of academic production itself. This is all more than dealing openly with questions of bias. To paraphrase the most famous public sociologist: by themselves, sociologists cannot fight a war of position; they need allies from the media classes.
*I linked to the Guardian article as an example of sensationalism, but in reality it’s actively harmful content where the author is not even aware of its harmfulness.