AN EXPLORATION OF GENDER DIFFERENCES IN TEENAGERS’ USE, CONSUMPTION AND DIGITAL PRODUCTION

Today’s teenagers have a very close relationship with ICTs and the digital space related to them, as they have impacted the way the youth constructs their sense of self and the tools they use to perform their carefully constructed identity. One key element which influences the way one constructs their views by themselves is within the boundaries set by their biological sex and therefore through the behaviors associated with their asigned gender. Through the symbolic interactionist lense, or more specifically through Goffman's dramaturgical theory on the manner in which one presents him/herself in society, this paper looks at the manner in which teenagers use social media platforms and at the way they consume and create digital content in order to present their gender identity. The way teenagers consume and produce digital content differs and depends on how they interpret their ideals of femininity and masculinity, which are afterwards reproduced in the content they post on their social media pages. Therefore this research is an attempt to understand what are the factors teenagers take in account when consuming and producing content. What gender differences can be observed in regards to new media consumption? What difference can be observed in online activity behaviors between males and females? How do they feel about their gender identity concerning fitting in with their peer group? A mix-methodological approach was engaged in the data collection process. In the first stage of the research highschool students (n=324) from the city of Suceava (Romania) participated in taking an online survey. The initial intent was to meet with the young respondents in person, but due to the COVID-19 pandemic this was deemed impossible. For the second stage of data collection, six of the participants who took the online survey were invited to participate in a focus group designed to grasp a better understanding of the results from the previous stage. The discovered findings uncover engaging gender similarities and differences in social media consumption and the type, subject, matter and style in which they posted their content, but also in regards to the performance of the self between the online and offline space.

REFLECTION OF THE CURRENT STATE OF PUBLICISTIC JOURNALISM GENRES IN THE SLOVAK MEDIA ENVIRONMENT

The submitted study addresses the topic of the current state of the opinion journalism and its genres in the Slovak periodical press. The author draws attention to the question of classification of the opinion journalism of a rational and emotional type from the genre categorization point of view and, simultaneously, reflects on its application in the present journalistic practice. This brings a certain rate of confrontation between the defined theoretical premises and their subsequent practical (non-)implementation. The main objective of the study is to clarify the presence of genres of analytical and literary opinion journalism stated by media theory in the environment of the Slovak periodicals. Presentation of the basic terminological axis and the related explication of journalism genres included in the opinion journalism constitute the secondary objectives of the paper. For the purposes of achieving the set objectives, the author uses methods of logical analysis of text in combination with discourse analysis. Similarly, she predicts the evident presence of the phenomenon of hybridization in the Slovak journalistic practice.

INITIAL STEP OF SPECIALIZED CORPORA BUILDING: CLEANING PROCEDURES

This paper deals with the specialized corpora building, specifically academic language corpus in the biotechnology field. Being a part of larger research devoted to creation and usage of specialized parallel corpus, this piece aims to analyze the initial step of corpus building. Our main research question was what procedures we need to implement to the texts before using them to develop the corpus. Analysis of previous research showed the significant quantity of papers devoted to corpora creation, including academic specialized corpora. Different sides of the process were analyzed in these researches, including the types of texts used, the principles of crawling, the recommended length of texts etc. As to the text processing for the needs of corpora creation, only the linguistic annotation issues were examined earlier. At the same time, the preliminary cleaning of texts before their usage in corpora may have significant influence on the corpus quality and its utility for the linguistic research. In this paper, we considered three small corpora derived from the same set of academic texts in the biotechnology field: “raw” corpus without any preliminary cleaning and two corpora with different level of cleaning. Using different Sketch Engine tools, we analyzed these corpora from the position of their future users, predominantly as sources for academic wordlists and specialized multi-word units. The conducted research showed very little difference between two cleaned corpora, meaning that only basic cleaning procedures such as removal of reference lists are can be useful in corpora design. At the same time, we found a significant difference between raw and cleaned corpora and argue that this difference can affect the quality of wordlists and multi-word terms extraction, therefore these cleaning procedures are meaningful. The main limitation of the study is that all texts were taken from the unique source, so the conclusions could be affected by this specific journal’s peculiarities. Therefore, the future work should be the verification of results on different text collections

WORK-BASED LEARNING IN HIGHER EDUCATION: EXPERIENCE AND CHALLENGES OF LEARNERS, WORKPLACES AND INSTITUTIONS OF HIGHER EDUCATION

In recent years, providing higher education in the form of work-based learning has become more important in the higher education (HE) policy and practice almost in all EU countries. Work-based learning (WBL) in HE should support the development of competences of self-guided learners and adjust the university education better to the needs of the workplace. The study is based on two pilot projects of WBL in HE in Estonia: Tourism and Restaurant Management professional HE programme and the master’s programme in Business Information Technology. The model of integrative pedagogy, based on the social-constructivist learning theory, is taken as a theoretical foundation for the study. A qualitative study based on semi-structured interviews with the target groups. The data analysis used a horizontal analysis to find cross-cutting themes and identify patterns of actions and connections. It appears, that the challenge for HE is to create better cooperation among stakeholders; the challenge for workplaces is connected with better involvement of students; the challenge for students is to take more initiative and responsibility in communication with workplaces.

THE USE OF CRITICAL THINKING AGAINST FAKE NEWS

The digital era has determined a very easy creation and propagation of fake news. As a consequence, it has become harder for people to fight this malicious phenomenon. However, the only weapon that can have results in this informational war is critical thinking. But who should use it? The creators of fake news that do this for different reasons? The social platforms that allow the circulation of fake news with ease? Mass media which does not always verify with much attention and rigour the information they spread? The Governments that should apply legal sanctions? Or the consumer that receives all the fake news, him being the final target? Even if critical thinking would be useful for every actor on fake news’ stage, the one who needs it the most is the consumer. This comes together with the big responsibility placed on his shoulders. Even if others are creating and spreading disinformation, the consumer must be aware and be careful with the information he encounters on a daily basis. He should use his reasoning and he should not believe everything just because it is on the Internet. How can he do that? Critical thinking seems to be a quite difficult tool to use, especially for non-specialized individuals. This paper’s aim is to propose a simplified model of critical thinking that can contribute to detecting fake news with the help of people’s self judgement. The model is based on theories from Informal Logic considering the structure of arguments and on Critical Discourse Analysis theories concerning the patterns found in the content of the information.

REVISITING CONTEMPORARY HOMESCHOOLING: THE CASE OF THE UNITED STATES

The term “homeschooling” denotes the process of educating, instructing, and tutoring children by parents at home instead of having this done by professional teachers in formal settings. Although regulation and court rulings vary from one state to another, homeschooling is legal in all fifty American states. Contrary to the growing tendency of parents in the United States to move toward homeschooling in 1999-2012, the rate of homeschooling and the population of those educated in this manner appear to have leveled off in 2012–2016. This paper aims to explain both phenomena and asks whether a trend is at hand.

DISTANCE EDUCATION IN FURTHER PROFESSIONAL TRAINING IN ENTERPRISES DURING PANDEMIC PERIOD

Constraints on our personal and professional life imposed by the COVID 19 pandemic have radically influenced our approach to forms of education, including those used in further professional training of employees. This shift means the focus on distance education as a managed educational form, which is suitable for further professional training. The aim of the paper is to present the implementation of distance education in further professional training in enterprises and based on the empirical research propose ways of improving options of education. Distance education is characterised in terms of its principles and developmental stages. Its first generation was correspondence education. The Learning Management System (LMS) and Learning Content Management System (LCMS) are described as the systems applied in further professional training. The research was conducted by means of the questionnaire method, combined with the pre-research survey. Results of empirical research are presented in tables. Separate parts of the paper deal with ICT application in corporate education (correspondence education, Computer-based training (CBT), Web-based training (WBT), Technology Based Training (TBT) and with the utilisation of Learning Management Systems (LMS). Analysis of respondent opinions shows that respondents tend to prefer the face-to-face form of corporate education. The length of the pandemic is going to affect the spread of e-learning in corporate education and its role in education. The learners’ interest may be expected to be shifted to LCM and LCMS utilisation. The paper is a partial result of the research scheme VEGA No. 1/0309/18 “Social networks in human resource management” supported by the Ministry of Education, Science and Research and Sports, Slovakia

TURNING FARMERS INTO SOCIAL FARMER ENTREPRENEURS FOR DISADVANTAGED PEOPLE

According to Romania’s National Rural Development Programme, the socio-economic situation of the rural environment has a large number of weaknesses – among which low access to financial resources for small entrepreneurs and new business initiatives in rural areas and poorly developed entrepreneurial culture, characterized by a lack of basic managerial knowledge – but also a large number of opportunities – among which access of the rural population to lifelong learning and entrepreneurial skills development programmes and entrepreneurs’ access to financial instruments. The population in rural areas depends mainly on agricultural activities which give them subsistence living conditions. The gap between rural and urban areas is due to low income levels and employment rates, hence the need to obtain additional income for the population employed in subsistence and semi-subsistence farming, especially in the context of the depopulation trend. At the same time, the need to stimulate entrepreneurship in rural areas is high and is at a resonance with the need to increase the potential of rural communities from the perspective of landscape, culture, traditional activities and local resources. A solution could be to turn vegetal and / or animal farms into social farms – farms on which people with disabilities (but also adolescents and young people with anxiety, depression, self-harm, suicide, and alexithymia issues) might find a “foster” family, bed and meals in a natural, healthy environment, and share the farm’s activities with the farmer and the farmer’s family: “committing to a regular day / days and times for a mutually agreed period involves complying with any required health and safety practices (including use of protective clothing and equipment), engaging socially with the farm family members and other people working on and around the farm, and taking on tasks which would include working on the land, taking care of animals, or helping out with maintenance and other physical work”

SELF-HARM IN ADOLESCENCE

This study provides the synonyms for the terms deliberate self-harm and self-destructive behaviour, together with a psychological portrait of self-harming adolescents, the consequence of self-harm, the purpose of self-harm, and the forms of self-harm. It also presents the results of a survey regarding the prevalence of people with non-suicidal self-harming behaviour, the gender of people with non-suicidal self-harming behaviour, the age of the first non-suicidal self-harming behaviour in these people, the frequency of non-suicidal self-harming behaviour in these people, the association of the non-suicidal self-harming behaviour with substance misuse in these people, the relationships of the people with non-suicidal self-harming behaviour with their fathers, mothers, and siblings, the relationships of the people with non-suicidal self-harming behaviour with their friends, the possible causes of self-harming behaviour in these people, and the relationship of people with non-suicidal self-harming behaviour with religion. Some of the results confirmed literature results, while others shed a new light on other aspects related to people with non-suicidal self-harming behaviour

SPECIFICS OF NATIONALLY-ORIENTED ADVERTISING IN RUSSIA AND CHINA

The article is devoted to a comparative analysis of nationally-oriented advertising in Russia and China. The material used for this article was represented by nationally-oriented advertising texts in Russia and China. The study shows that nationally-oriented advertising is an important type of advertising text which uses a positive image of the country with special geographical conditions and unique cultural and historical traditions. Particular attention is paid to a comparative analysis of similarities and differences in texts of nationally-oriented advertising in China and Russia, which uses a variety of multimodal media to form a positive image of the country and impact on consumers. The nationally-oriented advertising text focuses on the unambiguous interpretation of the national idea, the expression of which is a means of influencing consumers in order to awaken their patriotic feelings. The results of the study made it possible to reveal that despite the similarities, texts of nationally-oriented advertising in Russia and China are also marked by significant differences, which are due to the unique geographical and cultural characteristics of the two countries, as well as the deep originality of the two language systems.