Newsworthiness and the Public's Response in Russian Social Media: A Comparison of State and Private News Organizations

Social media have become one of the most important news delivery channels due to their interactivity and large audiences. The content published by news organizations on social networking sites is of particular value to sociologists, because it allows measurement of users’ attitude to certain events. However, we understand that the media choose which events become news in accordance with certain criteria, such as news values. In this study, we decided to examine how news values determine the public’s response as expressed by likes, reposts, and comments. To analyze the characteristics of different media and their audiences, we selected four popular newsgroups on the social networking site Vkontakte: TASS and Russia Today, representing the state media, alongside RBC and Meduza, representing the private media. The posts of the selected newsgroups were coded and analyzed by means of Harcup and O’Neill taxonomy of values (2016). The study showed that news organizations tend to have preferences for some news values rather than others. Regression analysis revealed positive relationships between 1) the sharing of likes and good and entertaining content, 2) the sharing of comments and the presence of celebrities or conflicts in news, 3) the sharing of reposts and comments and significant events. An unexpected discovery was a negative dependency between the number of comments and the presence of exclusive content

(Mechano)synthesis of azomethine- and terpyridine-linked diketopyrrolopyrrole-based polymers

Three efficient synthetic approaches towards new azomethine- and terpyridine-containing 2,5-dihydropyrrolo[3,4-c]pyrrole-1,4-dione (diketopyrrolopyrrole, DPP) based polymers, such as P1 and P2, are reported. The first approach involves the Pd-catalyzed synthesis via two- or three-component Suzuki or Stille cross-coupling reaction in solution. The second approach involves Pd-catalyzed Suzuki cross-coupling reaction under ball-milling conditions. And, finally, the third approach involves Pd-free condensation reaction under ball-milling conditions. The newly obtained polymers exhibited absorbance around 700 nm and emission around 900 nm, and, thus, these polymers are considered to be NIR-fluorophores

Conspiracy Theories Dissemination on SNS Vkontakte: COVID-19 Case

COVID-19 crisis has caused the growth of popularity of conspiracy theories disseminated by opinion leaders as well as anonymous actors via social media. This trend poses a danger because supporters of fake agendas contribute to spreading disinformation, deny the real risks, break the rules, and even undertake some unlawful actions. Since March 2020 Russian Federal Service for Supervision of Communications, Information Technology and Mass Media (Roskomnadzor) initiated blocking fake news about coronavirus on social media but some of them remained available to the public. In our study, we considered the agenda on conspiracy theories presented in the posts on the most popular Russian SNS VKontakte. The initial database contained 2342689 posts published between March 30 and May 12, 2020. After the interpretation of the results of topic modeling, we found that conspiracy-related posts comprised a small share among all popular COVID-related posts on VKontakte. Content analysis showed that only about a half of the posts with information on conspiracy theories about COVID-19 was devoted to the promotion of conspiracy arguments but the sufficient share related to the debate on alternative versions or criticism. It was revealed that the most popular theory presented in posts on Vkontakte can be described as “anti-vax/politicized” version of “the chipping theory” which found the link between coronavirus and “planned chipping” of population via “mass vaccination”. The structure of the agenda on COVID-related conspiracy theories is described. The key features of the analyzed agenda on conspiracy theories and practical applications are discussed

Essays on Keynesian Models of Closed and Open Economies

My dissertation contributes to the macroeconomics of self-fulfilling prophecies. It demonstrates the importance of shocks to beliefs in accounting for aggregate fluctuations. The dissertation consists of three chapters.The first chapter is a paper joint with Roger E.A. Farmer. We integrate Keynesian economics with general equilibrium theory in a new way. We develop a simple graphical apparatus, the IS-LM-NAC framework, that can be used by policy makers to understand how policy affects the economy. A new element, the No-Arbitrage-Condition (NAC) curve, connects the interest rate to current and expected future values of the stock market and it explains how ‘animal spirits’ influence economic activity. Our framework provides a rich new approach to policy analysis that explains the short-run and long-run effects of policy.The second chapter studies implications of self-fulfilling beliefs in open economies. Uncovered interest parity states that the carry trade should deliver zero profit, on average. The data robustly reject this hypothesis. In a large sample of countries, high interest rate currencies earn excess returns at short horizons and negative excess returns at longer horizons. I rationalize this observation in a two-country overlapping generations model with complete markets that features multiple dynamic equilibria. Because newborns cannot make decisions about consumption and savings before they are born, there is a set of self-fulfilling beliefs of the currently alive generations about the decisions of the future newborns. I utilize the multiplicity of dynamic equilibria by imposing a structure on the formation of beliefs. Beliefs are self-fulfilling, and shocks to these beliefs generate a large and volatile risk premium that is correlated with the interest rate differential. Changes in uncertainty about beliefs cause a reversal of expected excess returns associated with the current interest differential, similar to the reversal found in the data. I provide empirical evidence in favor of my mechanism and show that persistence of past expectations can account for most of the observed deviation from uncovered interest parity.The third chapter extends the methodology developed in the first chapter to the open economy framework. I build a model of the eurozone crisis. I study a two-country model in which agents form self-fulfilling beliefs about asset prices. Using the labor market search and matching frictions and abandoning Nash bar- gaining over wage, I create multiple equilibria on the labor market where any unemployment rate can be sustained as a steady state. Self-fulfilling beliefs about the future value of assets select the equilibrium. I show that sudden downward revisions of beliefs (‘animal spirits’) cause stagnation in real economic activity, international financial contagion, and, in the absence of recovery in confidence, permanently high rates of unemployment. High unemployment is viewed as a new steady state, not a temporary deviation from the natural rate of unemployment. Policy aimed at recovering the eurozone needs to trigger optimistic beliefs about the value of assets

Animal spirits in a monetary model

We integrate Keynesian economics with general equilibrium theory in a new way. We develop a simple graphical apparatus, the IS-LM-NAC framework, that can be used by policy makers to understand how policy affects the economy. A new element, the No-Arbitrage-Condition (NAC) curve, connects the interest rate to current and expected future values of the stock market and it explains how ‘animal spirits’ influence economic activity. Our framework provides a rich new approach to policy analysis that explains the short-run and long-run effects of policy

Double Relativistic Electron Accelerating Mirror

In the present paper, the possibility of generation of thin dense relativistic electron layers is shown using the analytical and numerical modeling of laser pulse interaction with ultra-thin layers. It was shown that the maximum electron energy can be gained by optimal tuning between the target width, intensity and laser pulse duration. The optimal parameters were obtained from a self-consistent system of Maxwell equations and the equation of motion of electron layer. For thin relativistic electron layers, the gaining of maximum electron energies requires a second additional overdense plasma layer, thus cutting the laser radiation off the plasma screen at the instant of gaining the maximum energy (DREAM-schema)