Meet the Dean
Elena Vartanova became a student of the Faculty of Journalism, Lomonosov Moscow State University in 1976. Since that time, her life has been heavily associated with the University. After her graduation with honors, she remained as laboratory assistant at the Department of Foreign Journalism and Literature, Faculty of Journalism.
She was interested in Finland, learned the Finnish language and began to research the mass media of that Northern country. In 1986, she defended her Ph.D. dissertation “Foreign Policy Conception of the Finnish Daily newspaper Helsingin Sanomat”.
At the end of 1980’s, she started to research the problem of the ICT impact on journalism and media systems. Restructuring in the country also led to significant changes in media. In that period, Elena Vartanova was interested in the development of Russian media within the new State. At the beginning of 90’s, she started to oversee the creation of a university program for researching Finland.
In 1996, she founded and headed the Centre for Finnish-Russian Studies of Culture and Mass Media at the Faculty of Journalism, Lomonosov Moscow State University. As Elena Vartanova’s field of interest expanded and she started to research media models of Northern European countries it became the Centre for Finnish and Scandinavian Media Studies, or, “NORDICA”. The result, her monograph “Northern Model at the End of the Century: Press, TV and Broadcasting Among Government and Market Regulation” appeared in 1997 and was awarded Moscow University's Shuvalov’s Prize.
At the same time, Elena Vartanova began to research the incipient Russian media market and prepare the course “Bases of Media Economics and Media Management”. The principles presented within this course became fundamental for years after.
In 1995, she became an expert from Russia with the Council of Europe on information and communication technologies (ICTs) looking into: access problems, influences of ICTs on freedom of speech, information access, pluralism and media diversity. Her experience became the basis of a new scientific interest in information society studies. Combining interest in Northern European media and information society issues, Elena Vartanova wrote another monograph and in 1999 defended her doctoral dissertation “Northern European Way to Information Society: Finnish Media Model Evolution”.
In 2000, Elena Vartanova became the professor of Department of Foreign Journalism and Literature and focused her activity on a new area in journalism – media economics and media management. In 2003, the manual “Media Economics of Foreign Countries” was published – the first book to cover this subject area in Russia. In 2009, along side her colleagues she prepared the fundamentally new text “Bases of Media Business”.
At the same time, her administrative career was rising: in 2001, Professor Vartanova was charged with the position of Deputy Dean for Research. In 2004, she founded and headed the new department – the first Department of Media Theory and Economics in Russia. In 2007, she was appointed as Dean Executive and in 2008 was elected as Dean of the Faculty of Journalism, Lomonosov Moscow State University. Thus, Professor Vartanova has been serving as Dean of the Faculty of Journalism and Chair in Media Theory and Economics for more than 15 years now, elevating excellence of the faculty in such a way that it is proactive in embracing new advances in theory and technology.
Professor Vartanova’s recent academic interests revolve around media conflictology, re-conceptualization of media system, ethnic media, digital divide and digital capital. She is a widely published scholar, with over 300 articles, over 50 edited and authored books, and roughly 100 educational courses. Her recent books include Deontology and Ethics in Modern Media Discourse. To the 90th Anniversary of G.V. Lazutina (2024) and Russian Media System: Textbook for High Schools (2023), both co-edited with colleagues from the Faculty of Journalism. Active contributor to the top-tier academic journals, in the past five years alone Professor Vartanova published roughly 60 papers in the Russian and English language. She is founder and Head of Scientific Board of World of Media. Journal of Russian Media and Journalism Studies (Scopus, Q2 in Linguistics and Language), and Editor-in-Chief of Vestnik Moskovskogo universiteta. Seriya 10. Zhurnalistika (Scopus, Web of Science). Moreover, she is member of editorial boards of a number of journals, both Russian and international.
Apart from research, Professor Vartanova teaches courses on the fundamentals of journalism, media economics and modern media theories, and provides research supervision to Bachelor and Master students as well as PhD and Doctor candidates, with 50 scholars having defended PhD and Doctoral thesis papers under her guidance in the course of her career.
Active member of academic organizations in Russia, Professor Vartanova is Academician of the Russian Academy of Education, President of the National Association for Media Researchers, Member of the Higher Attestation Commission of the Ministry of Education and Science of the Russian Federation, Member of the Presidential Council on the Russian Language, Secretary of the Russian Union of Journalism.
Professor Vartanova is a prize-winning scholar, and her regalia include Shuvalov Award (1997), Honored Worker of Higher School of the Russian Federation (2005), Medal of the order “For Merit to the Fatherland” of the 2nd degree (2013), Badge of Honor for Merit to the Professional Community by the Russian Union of Journalism (2014), Dean of the Year Award (2021).
Tel.: +7 (495) 629 74 35
Fax: +7 (495) 629 49 54
E-mail: referent@smi.msu.ru
Room 211