DEMAND FOR CHANGE IN MODERN RUSSIA: MEDIA MEME, SCIENTIFIC CATEGORY, AND SOCIAL

Abstract

Authors of the research project developed an original interpretation of the term ‘demand for change’, used as a popular media meme since the early 2010s. It is proposed to define the term as a category in the theory of social change - an outward message from society as a whole or its significant part (documented, at least, by public opinion polls), addressed to the current government, informing it about the need to change the priorities of the country from ensuring stability to intensifying economic, social and political transformations. The prerequisite to actualize the demand for change in the 2010-2020s was a growing number of ‘self-sufficient’ Russians, confident in their ability to ‘move forward’ independently, and the fact that many of them realize that they cannot isolate their private lives from the political decisions of the current government, which they do not support. The monitoring surveys of the Institute of Sociology of the Russian Academy of Sciences allowed to analyse the long-term dynamics of changes among the Russians who express support for change (actors of the demand for change) and their structure. Over the past five years, the ratio of those who desire change to those who favour stability has stabilized at about 50:50. In the early 2020s, the demand for change remains ideologically amorphous and focused mainly on the social & economic agenda.