Mikhail Bukhtoyarov

Darwin's theory has been one of the most influential narratives in both scientific literature and public discourse since publishing his foundational work. His name consistently appears in the list of ten most well-known scientists worldwide. But how has the popularity of his name been changing through the years? Has this change in his name's popularity occurred alongside the similar changes in popularity of major concepts introduced or studied by Charles Darwin? Text mining enables visual tracking of word usage trends in published texts. In this study, we applied frequency analysis to detect changes in the number of Charles Darwin's name mentions in several language corpora over a period of 150 years. By comparing the popularity peaks of Darwin's name and the most important concepts associated with it, such as Darwinism, evolution, natural selection, and variability, in different languages, we explore and visualize similarities and differences in their frequency across literature published in several languages. Based on the results of our analysis, we formulate several hypotheses regarding the potential reasons for the rise and fall of Darwin's popularity in textual sources, drawing on comparisons across linguistic and temporal contexts by comparing different language corpora in specific time periods.

Internet users fill in interactive forms with multiple fields, check/uncheck checkboxes, select options and agree to submit. People give their consents without keeping track of them. Dominance of the machine producing human consent is ubiquitous. Humanless bureaucratic procedures become embedded into routine usage of digital products and services automating human behavior. This bureaucracy does not make individuals wait in conveyor-like lines (which sometimes can cause a collective action), it patiently waits or suddenly pops up in an annoying message requiring immediate action and consuming time. It follows pre-installed procedures so cannot be distracted or appealed to. It lacks what Sofia Ranchordás calls ‘administrative empathy’. Users can hardly reach through bureaucratic procedures and communicate with another human. An individual involved in these sequences of actions contributes to increasing the quantity of bureaucratic procedures. The algorithmic bureaucracy power resides in the limited ability of human beings to make conscious and informed decisions when dealing with high complexity levels. This ubiquity makes it virtually impossible for individuals to track and verify statuses and control binding power of all legal actions on the platform. The authors apply critical analysis to explore social implications, threats and possible alternatives for corporate and governmental algorithmic bureaucracy in the emerging digital society.

The article addresses the issue of massive open online courses (MOOCs) which are based on the topics of humanities, social sciences and liberal arts. MOOCs developers promote them as the means of open and accessible education. Such courses target at the global audience and they can be efficient in dissemination of knowledge worldwide. Such courses have the capability of becoming a powerful tool for the emerging digital diplomacy. MOOCs can significantly increase the soft power of a political actor: state or non-state.

This study focuses on the interdisciplinary issue of language corpora mining for the purpose of cultural analytics. The authors utilize the comparative cross -cultural approach to highlight the dynamics of “revolution” concept throughout two and a half centuries. They study concept application through the word occurrence in five languages by the means of Google Books Ngram Viewer and trace the waves of concept “popularity”. Most of the word application peaks can be corresponded to the political events called “revolutions” but there is also an exception.

In the paper, the authors explore the relations between educational technology and educational ideology through the lens of philosophical inquiry. The optics of critical analysis is applied to review the instructional tools, services and systems which compose the complex picture of contemporary educational technology. The authors claim that even when initially established in the ideological domain of educational anarchism most educational technologies when being applied systemically can end up on the more oppressive side of the ideological spectrum close to educational totalitarianism. They focus on the risks of technology that are growing with the social change brought by the lifelong learning paradigm in education.

The challenge of updating the existing curriculum to meet the requirements of blended, interactive and gamified approaches is complex. This article presents the design and results of the application of a gamified activity that was used to enrich a blended Philosophy course taught for two years and taken by more than 450 sophomore students in a large public university in Russia. The combination of social search with multilingual communication became an important educational experience for the participating students.