THE FUNCTION OF SERVICE CHARTER AS A COMMUNICATION TOOL FOR CONSUMERS OF IMMIGRATION SERVICES IN KENYA
Abstract: This study sought to establish the role played by communication in the on-going reform programmes in Kenya’s public sector, specifically in the immigration department. In particular, it has investigated the function of the service charter as a communication tool for the users of consumers of immigration services. To interrogate the above issues, the study focused on the customers (service consumer). About 100 customers, sampled from members of the public seeking services at the department’s headquarters, formed part of the study sample. Both quantitative and qualitative methods were used to analyse the data collected from the study. Some of the key findings of the study were that a large majority of service seekers at the department do not know about the existence of service charter in the ministry. The study concludes that because the customers do not know the charter exists, few of them use it to demand services. The ministry values communication as crucial component in the public service reform programmes. The study thus recommends that the ministry should use all means at its disposal to disseminate the charter to service seekers who need to know what it promises. Such means could include service points, public forum s such as shows and exhibitions, churches and leaders’ meetings. The ministry should also facilitate regular interactions with service seekers to inform them of what it has to offer and get feedback on their expectations.
Keywords: Service charter, service consumers, communication.
THE PHILOSOPHY OF DEPRESSION
Abstract: Depression, together with anxiety, is one of the most fundamental emotional states of conscious being. The fall from the paradise of innocence was the fall into knowledge which brings about the freedom of choice and uncertainty of understanding altogether. The level of self-consciousness state I come with self-understanding an auto-poietic process of self-referentiality that involves both the anxiety of responsibility and depression of choosing. Consciousness begun with anxiety and depression, and was assisted by them throughout its entire evolution. The present high rate of clinical depressed people is a sign of an unbalanced functioning and of an inappropriate understanding these two fundamental axes of human psychic within modern culture, which should be reconsidered and employed for the progress of the consciousness and not foolishly pharmacological concealed.
Keywords: Depression, Anxiety, Biopsychosocial Model, Self-reflexivity, Depressive realism, Diathesis, Mental-Material Dialectic.
OUR DAILY PRESS. A ”SPECTRAL ANALYSIS” OF THE ROMANIAN PRESS AFTER 1989
Abstract: In mid-February 2011, I attended by chance a very interesting debate as a special guest, the topic was The Liberty of Media in Romania: common solutions for common problems, which was part of a program started by a Bristish civic organization called European Alternatives - www. euroalter.com - referring to the liberty of media in the entire Europe. Before exploring the space of our press, the British organization did the same thing in Italy, then in other few countries from the Eastern and Western parts of the continent. In Romania, the organization coordinated by Mrs. Anca Magyar already has ”an antenna” in Cluj, composed of journalists, civic activists, students etc. Some of them accompanied the rest of the team in Iași.1 Again by chance I was also asked for a text for the volume Mass media și democrația în România post-comunistă (Mass media and Democracy in Post-communist Romania), coordinated by my nice former students, now friends and collaborators, Daniel Șandru and Sorin Bocancea. I thought about taking advantage of these two events in order to try at least to sketch an analysis of the evolution of post-December press, of its relation with the destiny of democracy in our country. It is not my first personal attempt to ”spectrally analyse” indigenous press, but it is only the second one which surpasses the dimensions and ambitions of a newspaper article.
Keywords: press, history, public, education, tabloidization
THE ROLE OF CONFESSION IN SOCIAL COMMUNICATION. A FEW ASPECTS
Abstract: The 20th century was dominated by mass culture, and individualization has become dominant. The present paper tries to formulate some of “weaknesses” of the present day society on the social, psychological, spiritual level, weaknesses which are detrimental to privacy of the self and mars real communication between people. We have also tried to outline a number of aspects and points of view expressed by some important thinkers of the last century in order to surpass the difficulties confronting the dialogue by various philosophical solutions. Out of these, the “confidential conversation” has developed and come to the foreground, as Hans-Georg Gadamer named it in his work “Truth and Method”, the role of confession in communication or the way in which the self solves its problems in privacy, in order to move successfully to a relationship, to a real communication with the other one.
Keywords: confession, communication, technique, privacy
THE WORLD AS A MUSEUM IN THE POST/POSTMODERN SOCIETY
Abstract: The present study discusses actual problems on the evolution of museums at worldwide level, under the influence of some global phenomena, such as the unprecedented development of cultural tourism, consumism, rur-urbanisation and reurbanization of the society. Globalization of culture, on one side, and grasping of today’s world as a museum, on the other, become the acts of a performance staged for the rashed and stressed modern traveller. The cultural touristic pattern becomes prevailing in the postmodern society, transforming the institutions into museums and everyday life - into a work of art and a total Museum.
The present investigation analyzes the new significance and role of the museum in the post/postmodern society, starting from the understanding of the special regime imposed to it by globalization, and attempts at establishing its position and functions in the overwhelming, allembracing culture of divertissement of today.
INTEGRATING EUROPE THROUGH TRAVEL WRITING: DINICU GOLESCU’S ACCOUNT OF MY TRAVELS (1826)
Abstract: Before becoming the centripetal contemporary process, European integration was a personal, centrifugal undertaking in the emerging Romanian state. 19th century Romanian intellectuals would occasionally travel across the European continent and write accounts representing Europe as a model of civilization and culture to be integrated in their own land. Dinicu Golescu is such a traveler who not only produces what can be considered the first Romanian travelogue, but is also inspired by his European journeys to bring about change back home. Attempts such as his would gradually coagulate into a national reconfiguration project. This paper offers a close reading of Golescu’s travelogue, analyzing how Europe is represented by this Romanian traveler and to what purpose, with a view to illustrating the dynamics of European integration through travel (and) writing.
Keywords: Europe, Romania, integration, travel writing, Dinicu Golescu
MODERNIZATION OF EDUCATION IN THE MODERN WORLD
Abstract: In this paper, based on the multidimensional thinking, the features of education in the industrial period and globalization, methodology, theory and the “traps” of the transition period are discussed.
Keywords: modernism, postmodernism, thinking in a multidimensional space 3D and 4D, industrial period, globalization, competence-based approach to learning, knowledge approach to learning.
THE REALIZATION OF COMMON EUROPEAN COMPETENCE IN MODERN FOREIGN LANGUAGE EDUCATION
Abstract: The intercultural integration processes at the national and international levels are impossible without the modernization of the national education system. Active research for promising areas of the educational system of Kazakhstan and, as a consequence, the modern tendency development of secondary and higher education can talk about fundamental changes in the educational system of Kazakhstan. A foreign-language education doesn’t play the last role in the intercultural integration of Kazakhstan, which will form the specialists who know a foreign language at a level recognized by the international community and responsive to the needs of society. Achieving these goals requires a revision of the old and the formation of new approaches to the teaching of foreign languages, which ultimately could ensure the implementation of a new social order. One of the most topical for today ways of building a new educational paradigm is a competence approach. The formation of professionals who know a foreign language at a level recognized by the international community and meet the needs of society is possible through the implementation of European competence. Competencies provide a solution to problems in various conditions, and are implemented in activities aimed at the generation and perception of texts in connection with certain themes and areas of communication, and with the use of appropriate strategies.
Keywords: cross-cultural communicative theory, Common European competencies, the competence approach, control of formation of communicative ability, standard approach
POLYCULTURAL CONTEXT OF LEARNING FOREIGN LANGUAGES IN HIGHER SCHOOLS
Abstract: The polycultural component is strongly pronounced in the State Polar Academy in Saint-Petersburg, which was created in order to train a new generation of qualified experts for North, Siberia and Far East regions of Russia. Students of 58 nationalities study in the Academy. It is necessary to undertake comparative analysis of Russian, French and national languages, study their typological differences and help students to overcome interference effects that might occur during the process of learning French under bilingual and multilingual context.
Keywords: interference, national language, native language, proportions, transnational contacts
EUROPEAN AND NATIONAL FUNDS FOR HIGHER EDUCATION AND RESEARCH
Abstract: The Structural Funds are financial instruments through which the European Union acts in order to eliminate the economic and social disparities between the regions, towards achieving an economic and social cohesion. The structural funds are post-adherence funds supplied through the European Union budget whose purpose is to support the member countries. They also support the investments in education and research.
THE FUTURE OF LABOUR FORCE IN THE CONTEXT OF GLOBALIZATION
Abstract: Emigration, namely movement of a person or group of persons from one place to another, is specific to both humans and animals and birds. In the beginning, the main reason of such movements was finding of food and water, later on of a job, of escaping political or religious persecutions, or of a new place for professional accomplishment. In time, emigration came to be caused by forced dislodgements, civil wars, or return to the native country. Therefore, the emigration phenomenon has existed since old times, it is still present in our days and, it will undoubtedly be continued in the future, its causes being the unequal economic development of the various countries of the world.
Keywords: emigration, immigration, motivation, perils, restrictions, welfare
FROM THE LIMITS OF AUTHENTICITY TO THE CRISIS OF COMMUNICATION
Abstract: Created by the inter-war generation, the notion of authenticity will witness a fulminating career along time, drawing the attention of both men-of-letters, on one side, and of philosophers, historians, theologists, diplomats, etc., on the other. Nothing of the effervescent substance of this concept will remain outside the interest of the intellectuals actively involved in a genuine competition of ideas.
MEDIA VIOLENCE EXPLAINED MATTHEW S. EASTIN (ED.), ENCYCLOPEDIA OF MEDIA VIOLENCE, SAGE PUBLICATIONS, 2013
Abstract: Encyclopedia of Media Violence is a very recent editorial outcome that has been published in October by the reputable Sage Publications. In 134 signed entries developed in 456 pages, this book intends to become a reference in the field of communication and media studies, psychology or sociology. The encyclopedia editor, Matthew S. Eastin, is an associate professor in the Department of Advertising and Public Relations at The University of Texas at Austin. He has published papers in prestigious journals such as Journal of Communication, Journal of Computer-Mediated Communication, Communication Research, Journal of Broadcasting and Electronic Media, CyberPsychology and Behavior, Computers in Human Behavior, Human Communication Research and he edited another two books. His main research concerns the media behavior, with a special focus on video games engagement, including violence.
