Monitoring crisis: from “dead zones of imagination to “zones of new relevances”

Abstract

This work is a response to the D.M. Rogozin`s article titled “Cognitive analysis of the economic crisis perceptions” published in this issue of the Monitoring of Public Opinion. The author gives an attempt of methodic criticism of direct and indicative model of public opinion surveys dominating Russian pollsters; the work is based on the data obtained from the initiative study conducted by the “Social Validation” Autonomous Non-Commercial Organization. The purpose of the work was to study the same data but viewed from another angle: it was important to get to know the way how the results of the survey carried out using the cognitive approach can be interpreted, notably, what additional features the questionnaire tools can offer to reveal and interpret those social phenomena which are related to economic field. This extra measurement has a direct relation to the behavioral motives and peculiarities of everyday practices which cannot be ignored when Russians try to describe their “fears”, “expectations” and “strategies to overcome crisis. Such explanations can be achieved through additional conceptualization of the data; this is why the author refers to certain elements of the theoretical language of D. Graeber and especially A. Schutz. This allows discussing the crisis monitoring using the technique of perceptive mapping of the areas of the biggest concern described in the works of F. Andrews and S. Withey.