Issue 13 of the journal “Language. Communication. Society” continues to develop an interdisciplinary approach to current issues in linguistics, media communications, philosophy, and academic reflection on specialised literature. Each section offers an in-depth analysis of contemporary trends that reflect the dynamics of societal development in the context of digital transformation and information overload.
Linguistics and Intercultural Communication
This section examines the persuasive potential of political and economic metaphors in media discourse, the linguistic features of prompting as a new genre of online interaction, and the discursive strategies found in sustainability reports of Russian oil and gas companies. The authors analyse how metaphorical models from the political and economic spheres shape audience value judgments, enhancing or mitigating the manipulative impact of news content. Particular attention is paid to prompting — a linguistic phenomenon emerging at the intersection of natural communication and interaction with generative neural networks, where formulating a query becomes a genre in its own right, requiring pragmatic and syntactic precision. The article also explores the self-presentation strategies of major oil and gas corporations in sustainability documents, demonstrating how balancing environmental responsibility with commercial interests gives rise to specific rhetorical devices that mask contradictions through the vocabulary of “green” discourse.
Media Communications and Journalism
This section is devoted to the digital transformation of communication practices in Russian PR, managing a university rector’s personal brand on the social network VKontakte, and the phenomenon of information noise. The authors trace the evolution of public relations in the context of media environment algorithmisation, noting a shift from mass mailings to hyper‑targeted campaigns and reputation engineering within closed channels. Using the case of the International Academy of Business and New Technologies (MUBiNT), the study analyses the feasibility of managing a rector’s personal brand as a tool for building student loyalty; correlations are identified between post tonality, audience engagement, and trust in the university administration. A separate place is given to the conceptualisation of information noise — its nature, creation tools (clickbait, repetition, simulacra of events) and social consequences in the form of cognitive overload, content fatigue, and a lowered threshold for news significance. The authors conclude that in conditions of perpetual noise, it is not the most credible messages that succeed, but those that are most resistant to repetition and easiest to remember — thereby transforming the very logic of media production.
Philosophy
The philosophy section addresses the transformation of the concept of meaning in the digital age and offers a philosophical‑cultural analysis of design thinking as a method for constructing norms (using the “Pervenets” project as a case study). The authors explore how the semantic structure of meaning is eroded by streaming information consumption, narrative fragmentation, and the de‑subjectivation of the author: deep interpretative meaning is replaced by operational, situational and computable values, calling the classical hermeneutic tradition into question. Design thinking is examined not merely as a prototyping technology but as a cultural method that legitimises certain problem‑solving approaches. Through the “Pervenets” project (presumably related to normative and material environments), the authors show how design thinking tacitly constructs norms of user behaviour, displacing ethical reflection in favour of empathy and iterative testing, thus shaping a new anthropology of the “adaptive subject”.
Scientific Reviews and Critiques
This section features a review of the university textbook Foundations of Public Relations Theory by A. D. Krivonosov, O. G. Filatova, and M. A. Shishkina. The reviewer not only evaluates the textbook’s didactic merits but also situates it within the broader evolution of PR education. It is noted that the textbook, rooted in the St. Petersburg academic tradition, offers an innovative combination of classical theory (the Grunig–Hunt models) and recent case studies in digital reputation management. Particular emphasis is placed on how the authors manage to maintain a balance between universal principles of public relations and Russian institutional specifics. The review concludes that this edition is likely to become an essential reference for students in relevant fields as well as for practitioners seeking to update their theoretical toolkit.
The unifying theme of the issue is the transformation of persuasive, semantic and managerial processes in the context of digital turbulence and information noise. The authors demonstrate how linguistic research (metaphors, prompting, discursive strategies), media communications (PR, branding, noise) and philosophical reflection (meaning, design thinking) converge on a single question: how does the contemporary subject (user, reader, student, or algorithm) construct, filter and appropriate meaning in a world of over‑produced messages? The journal continues to serve as a platform for academic dialogue, bringing together specialists from different fields of knowledge and helping to expand a shared scientific and educational space.
