Call for Abstracts. Special Issue "Social Technology Research: Responsibility for Change"

2026-01-04

The journal Monitoring of Public Opinion: Economic and Social Changes announces a call for applications for a Special Issue "Social Technology Research: Responsibility for Change".

Guest editors of the Issue: Cand. Sci. (Econ.) Oxana V. Sinyavskaya (HSE University), Cand. Sci. (Soc.) Polina V. Kolozaridi (ITMO University, European Universoty at St. Petersburg).

If we look at the speed of the emergence of technical innovations, it seems that we live in an era of fulfilled plans and predictions. Artificial intelligence, automatic cashiers, electronic queues, digital educational courses on any topic, instant calculation of complex formulas, and translations between all languages, online consultations of doctors, and so on. It would seem that people's ability to manage themselves and the world is expanding, life is becoming easier and more comfortable, and hard work is leaving it. But at the same time, the acceleration of technology production and its complexity make visible the variability and unreliability of our knowledge of the world, limit our ability to manage things and rules surrounding us at work and at home, and force us to rely more often on expert knowledge of unknown origin.

Innovations are created to offer users new opportunities and attract them. At the time of their appearance, they usually occupy a narrow niche in the market and are outside the regulatory zone. But as the surviving innovations spread, they begin to affect the lives of an increasing number of users, and the question arises about building relationships between technology developers and users — and the role that the state plays in this process.

At what point is the technology considered ready for users, and how is its readiness tested? Does modern technology have a history? What are the metrics of technology usefulness based on? What happens in the corporate, educational, and work culture when technology is introduced? Who is responsible for these changes? How does infrastructure support work and why do projects not fit into social relations? How are technology use policies formed, and who controls their application, and how are ethical principles and rules for their application formed?

We invite authors to discuss these issues within the Special Issue dedicated to sociology and socio-economic research of the future of the Monitoring of Public Opinion: Economic and Social Changes Journal.

The purpose of the Monitoring of Public Opinion Journal special issue is to explore how technology creates new opportunities and how this changes the boundaries of responsibility and its distribution between the agents of technological change, corporations, users, and the state, as well as to show the possibilities and limitations of social technology research.

The editors will consider applications giving priority to the following research areas:

  • the responsibility of the agents of technological change: platforms, developers, and entrepreneurs — for creating infrastructures that are then used by thousands of people;
  • transformation of acquisition and use processes in the context of platform development: affordances and responsibilities of consumers, suppliers, and manufacturers of products;
  • platform employment as a new format of employment: its differences from labor contracts and entrepreneurship, the boundaries of responsibility of performers, platforms, and the state;
  • human reinforcement technologies, medical applications, and self-care data: how do they change the ability to control health and the boundaries of responsibility for it;
  • - the limits of responsibility of developers and the state for diagnostic accuracy and errors, the unintended consequences of technology development and the consequences of human empowerment (biological, educational, cultural);
  • the use of digital technologies in public administration of social policy and their impact on the model of interaction between the state and the population;
  • the perception of technology and its role in shaping social relations and inequalities in the future, techno-optimism and techno-pessimism, the relationship between humans and technology.

We accept studies based on quantitative or qualitative methods of sociological analysis using official statistics, population surveys, big data, materials of in-depth interviews, focus groups, or other information sources.

A mandatory requirement for articles is to justify the choice of the theoretical framework of the work, research methodology, and data sources.

Applications for the Special Issue are accepted by email (biryukova_s@wciom.com) until March 30, 2026. Please indicate the following subject when sending the letter: “Application for a Special Issue — Social Technology Research”. The application must include:

  • Title of the article;
  • Brief information about the authors (position and place of work, contact email);
  • Abstract to the article of 300 to 600 words, containing the main purpose of the study and brief information about the theoretical framework of the work, research hypotheses, information about the methods used in the work and its empirical basis (data).

Applications are accepted in Russian or English.

The editors will consider various formats of applications, including classical research articles, literature reviews, and book reviews.

The deadline for making decisions on applications is April 30, 2026.

The deadline for preparing full-text articles for selected applications is August 30, 2026. Full texts for selected applications are accepted through the Journal website (https://www.monitoringjournal.ru/) and must meet the requirements for manuscripts described in the Author Guidelines section: https://www.monitoringjournal.ru/index.php/monitoring/about/submissions.

The planned publication date of the Special Issue is March 2027.