Students will be reading articles from different Russian media sources and discussing their content and philosophy, with the goal of understanding the driving forces of Russian media discourse, its main players, the attitudes of Russian people to media and the role that media plays in politically charged atmosphere of the season of parliamentary elections. In addition to regular class work, students will participate in a number of teaching modules delivered by the leading Russian sociologist, media personality and experts in a variety of fields. All the modules will be taught in Russian. Students will present their research findings throughout the semester and will write a final paper on the topic of their choice.