Narratives about the Russian innovation system in the mass media

Analyzing narratives about the Russian innovation system can reveal how current interaction between actors contributes to or inhibits innovation development in modern Russia. The study aims to identify and critically analyze narratives about the Russian innovation system to reveal key elements in the statements of actors of the Russian innovation system. Comparison between the findings obtained through quantitative and qualitative analysis is based on the frequency of certain lexemes or phrases, and the assessment of significance of ideas circulating among the actors of the Russian innovation system. Using factor analysis, we identified several micro-themes within two samples of narratives, extracted from: (1) rating media (problems related to the development of the Russian economy and innovation activity, as well as the relationship between science and innovation), and (2) specialized media (innovative business concerns and market conditions for innovative development). Staffing of innovation activities is found to be associated with the development of science and education, on the one hand, and business, on the other. An unexpected result was that relevant micro-themes do not contain lexeme "intellectual property". This fact is presumably due to the relative inefficiency of intellectual property organizations and related institutional environment, with the performance measurement framework compels the actors primarily towards formally defined indicators.