Challenges for the Entrepreneurial Environment and the European Union During the Pandemic

In the last decade, it has come to the recognition and awareness that European states and the business environment have been constantly guided by the objectives set out in the strategies by the European Union. Due to the crises, that arose, the whole of contemporary society was in a constant struggle to maintain a balance between the economic, social and environmental. Thus, the trinomial of the interdependence between economic growth, resource use and environmental protection, now known as "sustainable development", creates a multitude of activities that succeed in promoting realistic strategies on how to manage the natural resource base. Currently, due to the new crisis in the European economy, a trinomial has formed between entrepreneurship - pandemic - sustainable development. The EU continues to play its role in protecting citizens and the business community by mobilizing financial resources to minimize the negative impact of the pandemic. The purpose of this article is to highlight the fact that awareness of the emergence of a new impending crisis is forcing EU states to consider the sustainable development of the entrepreneurial environment as the driving force of the late twentieth century.

Considerations on the Doctoral Thesis „Mitul Salvatorului în Strategiile de Comunicare în Campaniile pentru Alegeri Prezidenţiale în România Postdecembristă” [The Myth of the Savior in Communication Strategies in the Campaigns for Presidential Elections in Post-December Romania], Author: Ariana-Loreta Guga

We draw attention on the enrichment of the Romanian research literature with the doctoral thesis entitled “The Myth of the Savior in the communication strategies in the presidential election campaigns in post-December Romania”, elaborated by Ariana-Loreta Guga under the coordination of Prof. PhD. Sandu Frunză and defended in 2020 in order to obtain the title of PhD in Political Sciences at "Babeș-Bolyai" University, Cluj-Napoca, Romania. The author pursues a transdisciplinary approach, that has, as a central point, the field of political communication, which is approached by referencing theories and tools in the area of political and administrative sciences, sociology, management but also in the field of applied ethics.

The Use of Mass Media in the Social Welfare Area

In the present article there is a short presentation of the historical backdrop of the social partner calling globally and in our nation. Accentuation is set on network social help and the improvement of this arrangement of social assurance in the interwar period, the socialist time frame, and after the upheaval of December 1989. The phases of the improvement of the advanced education of social help with the area of Arad after the unrest are stamped. The paper presents the cause exercises completed by understudies at the UAV Arad under the direction of their educators and the media inclusion of these activities (by press and TV). Media inclusion has prompted a superior information on the calling and an expansion in the quantity of understudies who wish to take up this calling.

SARS-COV2 as Trigger for Reviewing Strategic and Operational Public Administration Frameworks

Administration as complex field of science, expertise, and research has accompanied economic, social, and cultural development from ancient times up to now. Public administration is the most visible component as it has multiple facets as expression of the political, legal, and managerial context inside a country. It ensures permanent direct or indirect links between government and individuals, and is relevant for several related fields like employment, education, health, and environment. The current ongoing pandemic has confronted public administrations all over the world with multiple challenges, and one of them stands out – the necessity of reviewing policymaking processes, policies, measures, and intervention frameworks of public administration to make them more flexible, responsive and fit for operating in a digitalized environment. In this respect, Romania is faced with multiple challenges regarding policymaking and public administration policies, and as regards decision-making and proper functioning at the two main levels, respectively operational and strategic. Current uncertainty needs to be addressed not just by immediate action, but also requires outlining some future directions for policymaking as regards public policies at strategic level, and improvement of skills and capacities at operational level at both national and European level. It should address main fields public administration has to deal with, from education and health, to employment and environmental issues as global crises like the SARS-COV2 pandemic or other unexpected force majeure events might change priorities and endanger certain aspects of established policies thus being both threat and opportunity for convergence and cohesion at European and national level.

Public Participation in the Decisional Process in Bucharest

The public participation process represents the foundation for the development of a sustainable democratic society. This research paper focuses on the relation between the citizens and public authority throughout cooperation. The concept of public participation is understood here as the interaction between different kinds of actors, through available communication channels, in order to identify needs, opinions and beliefs with the purpose of adopting and implementing them in the form of public policies and decisions. This research paper highlights a communication rupture between the public administration and the citizens in Bucharest. Given the context provided by the COVID-19 pandemic, this research paper highlights the need to modernize the public administration in order to better communicate with the population. Some of the possible causes for the miscommunication, that appeared repeatedly throughout the survey, were the disappointment of the population with the public authority, lack of civic education or difficult procedures for public participation. Some of the possible solutions mentioned by the respondents are digitalization of the process of public participation, implementation of the proposals that come from the population, better informing the citizens with respect to the projects that are to be implemented in the community and online anonymous surveys. The survey technique used in order to obtain these data was the online survey, a questionnaire applied to the population of Bucharest, from all the 6 sectors of the Capital.

Investigating Age and Gender Stereotypes

This research focuses on the presence of stereotypes regarding age and gender, using as case study the book Cities for people, by Jan Gehl. Recognized worldwide as one of the most important supporters for the rapprochement of the public urban space towards its citizens, Jan Gehl dedicated most of his career to the importance of the human factor in the planning of cities. This study represents a content analysis of the ways in which the characters from the Cities for people book are being presented according to gender and age. The research represents a quantitative analysis of all the images in the book, comprising individuals or groups of people (collective characters) involved in different types of actions. The results of the study highlight an a relatively equal presence of both genders (48.8% feminine characters and 51.2% masculine characters). Most of the images present individual characters, which gives us the opportunity to clearly see their general image, socio-demographic characteristics (relative age and gender) or carried actions. However, there is a significant percentage of nearly 21% of the images in which the characters are presented as part of a crowd, as collective characters, which causes an increased degree of un-individualization. Even in these cases, non the less, there can be frequently observed a relatively homogeneous mass of people, most of them male adults. The biggest discrepancy highlighted by the study of the images of this book is with regard to the distribution of the main age categories (children, adolescents, adults and seniors). When it comes to these categories, Cities for people gives a greater attention to the adults, a category of people which is present in nearly 50% of the images. The other 50% is divided between children, adolescents and seniors, the most disadvantaged of them being, surprisingly, the children’s category (present in only 12.1% of the images).

Insights into Lexico-Semantic Fields of Romanian Editorial-Polygraphic Terms

Due to the dynamic nature of the vocabulary, we can argue that any lexico-semantic field can be unlimited, has no rigid boundaries, which leads to difficulties in establishing semantic relationships between the constituent units of a semantic field, and the second problem arising from this phenomenon would be the establishment of the inventory of a semantic field. Thus, the system that is the objective of our research consists of the units of "inventory" (terms) and the relationships between its constituent elements, and the fluctuation of the boundaries of a semantic field that leads to difficulties in the limiting it and in the rigorous composition of the inventory semantically. Not all words in the vocabulary can be grouped into lexico-semantic fields, only those that are organized and stable. A semantic field also corresponds to a certain grammatical category - gender, number, time, aspect, mode, etc., and the oppositions between the members of a lexical-semantic field correspond to the oppositions of their grammatical categories. Therefore, in order to practically approach the structuring of a lexico-semantic field, a theoretical and methodological incursion in structural semantics is absolutely necessary. We consider that the reflections regarding the concept of lexical field are absolutely fundamental in order to be able to try to structure such linguistic fields in a certain field, in our case - in the editorial-polygraphic field.

The Effects of Mass-Media on Social Behavior, Emotions and Cognitions

Mass media affects its consumers primarily in their cognitive dimension, by changing the image of the world - in this sense that the media becomes a vector of social influence, by changing the cognitions of individuals - but also by changing the shared social constructs within membership groups. The stated role of the media is to inform target audiences about events of interest in the field-specific to the activity of the media trust, but also to convey opinions, ideas, and views on those events in a way that is as complete and as complex as possible, allowing recipients to build their own opinions or adhere to one or another of the opinions expressed. This article deals with the ethics of mass communication when faced with a window of opportunity which allows an easier promotion of ideas or interests, taking into account the theory of life as a spectacle promoted by Erwin Goffman.

Review of the Volume “Asistenţa socială şi religiozitatea la persoanele cu handicap” [Social Work and Religiosity for People with Disabilities], Author: Carmen Gabriela Mândrilă-Lăzăreanu, Lumen Publishing House, 2020

The book “Asistenţa socială şi religiozitatea la persoanele cu handicap” [Social work and religiosity for people with disabilities], authored by Carman Gabriela Mândrilă Lăzăreanu, published by Lumen Publishing House from Iasi, Romania, in 2020, aims from the beginning to be an important guide for young generations, developing both the secular dimension of social work and the religious dimension, specific to theological environments. We welcome the publishing of the book, especially since social discourses and, unfortunately, those of some Romanian public personalities blame the vulnerable condition of the people who depend on financial benefits and other types of intervention and support services. In this sense, the book clarifies from the beginning the importance of changing mentalities, norms, and how these people are perceived, for a solution to the problems they face. Approached in terms of cause and effect, the volume focuses on the social, psychological, medical, and legal dimensions that define the situation of disability in order to build an objective framework for assessing and supporting the condition of disability.

Pilot Judgments Delivered by the European Court of Human Rights against Romania

The article defines first the concept of pilot decision. Then it details the procedure employed in case of systemic or systematic violations of any right provided by the European Convention on Human Rights. Some relevant pilot judgments against certain member states of the Council of Europe are highlighted. Next, two pilot judgments delivered against Romania (Maria Atanasiu and Others v. Romania and Rezmives and Others v. Romania) are thoroughly examined. Finally, some relevant opinions on the subject are expressed. The issue is very topical for the Romanian state and the specialists in the field, precisely because of the consequences determined by the two analyzed pilot judgments.