EDITIONS

The growing interest in the matter of employee loyalty shown by organizations is generated by the current trend in employees being the most valuable assets an organization has. A genuine desire expressed by the employees of an enterprise to provide excellent performance is one of the keys to corporate success. In order to ensure a sustainable development of a company, a certain type of balance must be achieved in terms of loyal customers, loyal employees and loyal investors enjoyed by the company. Building positive corporate relationships between brand and customer guarantees financial success in business. Grasping the importance of commercial efficiency of the impact made by the employees on the company as well as customer loyalty and staff motivation necessitates providing employees with favorable, if not, appealing and comfortable working conditions.

The relevance of the chosen issue lies in the profitability of any organization identified to be a major indicator of the stability and closely correlated with the efficiency of employees. The results achieved by people in business operation rest not only on their expertise, skills and abilities, but also on the willingness of employees to work for the benefit of the organization.

The article considers the key aspects of the US external energy diplomacy in the context of the transformation of the global energy market at the present stage. The features of American energy strategy are revealed. The main strategic documents of the U.S., affecting the problems of energy security and energy strategy, are studied. The features of the concepts of “energy dominance” (Trump) and “energy independence” (Nixon) are presented from the point of view of their implementation in the context of modern political and economic challenges.

The structure of the U.S. energy balance is considered, which made it possible to determine the level of dependence on external supplies of hydrocarbon raw materials, especially oil. The priorities of the U.S. in the hydrocarbon market (both natural gas and oil) and renewable energy are studied through the prism of the climate agenda (in particular, the 2015 Paris climate agreement).

Special attention is paid to the issues of liquefied natural gas (LNG) export from the U.S., especially towards European markets. The key risks and challenges of US energy diplomacy in the context of the conflict in Ukraine as well as geopolitical confrontation with Russia are identified. The US energy strategy in the South Caucasus is considered. The main features of the U.S. energy cooperation with Armenia, Georgia and Azerbaijan in the context of geopolitical challenges are revealed.

The development of modern technologies has given rise to the era of visual culture, in which visual information is more important than verbal information, because in most respects, it is more comprehensive with implicit messages. Therefore, we decided to study open political advertisements on Georgian TV, in which visual information often has much more meaning than verbal information.

In general, advertising producers, and especially the creators of political advertising, should skillfully use the visual component in order to be able to increase the degree of impact on the consumers by increasing the media space. In order to measure the trends observed in Georgian political marketing in this regard, we analyzed advertisements used for different types of elections from 2014 to 2021.

The research period was determined by the following fact: since 2014, Georgian Dream has added a new model – the multi-sided positioning of a candidate – to the variety of open political advertisements created by Georgian political parties – counter-advertisement, propaganda. Our goal was to observe the transformation of open political advertising from 2014 to the municipal elections in 2021.

Our research is a novelty from the point of view of methodology, because, despite the fact that, as a rule, open or hidden political advertising has been studied by specialists in different contexts, there has so far been no precedent for the presentation of implicit meanings of Georgian open political advertising based on semiotic analysis and theories of media effects. We believe that it is possible to decipher the hidden meanings of open political advertising based on these two areas – semiotics and theories of media effects.

The conducted research has shown that in the process of perception of the message by the recipient, the visual code intervenes and gives direction. The examples studied by us prove that frames are mostly created by visual elements that dictate to the addressee how to perceive the message. Based on the theory of ‘agenda setting’, political marketing professionals offer potential voters the questions to think about before making a final decision and, accordingly, the ways of solving these problems are shown to the audience.

Since 2014, Georgian TV open political advertising has been improving, there is a tendency of increasing creative approach, which makes this important part of the election campaign diverse. ‘Falling into negativism’ also decreases and its place is occupied by the type of advertising, which is focused on creative presentation of the candidate and his / her action plan.

Religious conflicts attract special interest of the media. A journalist’s responsibility is vital in the process of covering religious crises in order to present to the audience balanced, objective, stereotype-free facts and provide the user with a media product prepared at a professional level, without distortion and/or misinterpretation of facts, and also avoid formation of stereotypical views and attitudes. It should be taken into account that the information spread by the media should not lead to deepening of the conflict among religious groups. Recently, the Georgian media often covers religious issues, because the number of religious conflicts in the country has increased fairly.

Relationship between religious organizations and the state is a particularly important area of interest both in the world and in Georgia, and a country where these relationships are regulated is even considered ideal. According to the annual report of the Public Defender of Georgia, Georgia is unfortunately not considered to be among such ideal countries. According to the report, facts of intolerance on religious basis in Georgia are quite often recorded, and what should be surprising, that media organizations often incite to the situation more than state officials. How are religious events covered in Georgian media? In this regard, a systematic and in-depth research on the coverage of religious issues in the media has not yet been conducted. The presented research is an attempt to improve the above-mentioned condition, and naturally, like all first attempts, it may have some imperfections. Within the framework of the research, the public opinion regarding the coverage of religious issues in the Georgian media is analyzed for the first time.

The presented report provides an opportunity to see a comprehensive picture of the current situation in the Georgian media regarding the coverage of religious issues. I hope that the presented findings will be a significant part of discussions and with their help it will be possible to start a dialogue between the interested parties in order to improve condition of the Georgian media in terms of reporting on religious issues.

The current Russia-Ukrainian war had a great impact not only on the mentioned states but also went beyond their territorial scope. The political chaos has particularly affected Russia’s strategic partner, in particular Syria. The states of the Middle East are characterized by a politically unstable environment, which is facilitated by the unfavorable economic situation within the country, on the basis of which a large part of the population is impoverished. That is why the political representatives of the states of the mentioned region are looking for an important strategic partner/partners to rely on and thus maintain a dominant position in their country.

Syria is no exception, in this case, its ally in the region is Iran, and the position of an external actor has been occupied by the Russian state in recent years. Of course, all three states have their own interests, on the basis of which they establish relations, for example, the presence of Assad in power and the neutralization of his opponents in the country depends on the power of Iran and the Russians. At the same time, Syria imports food products from Russia. In 2021, Russia undertook to supply wheat to Syria, however, the Russian-Ukrainian war stopped this process, because the area of its attention became Ukraine as a whole, therefore it tries to use all the resources produced by it to help this war. Against the background of the ongoing war, the supply of food resources in Syria slowed down and almost fell to a minimum from Russia, which contributed to further impoverishment of the population and, of course, an increase in prices was inevitable. According to experts in the field, Iran has been given the greatest chance to take full power in Syria in its own hands, due to the fact that the epicenter of Russia’s attention is another state. It is important to note that Russia’s influence has not weakened from a political point of view.

CHALLENGES FACED BY THE CURRENT MECHANISM FOR DEALING WITH VIOLENCE AGAINST WOMEN AND DOMESTIC ABUSE UNDER THE CONDITIONS OF THE COVID-19 PANDEMIC IN GEORGIA AND SWITZERLAND

Majority of the countries around the world declared a state of emergency to confront the COVID-19 pandemic, including Georgia and Switzerland. Although each nation adopted an individual method of fighting the pandemic, resulting in full or partial as well as short-term and long-term states of emergency, the pandemic has certainly become the main factor hindering social, economic and political activities around the globe.

A great number of citizens are finding themselves to have gone either into self-isolation or quarantine in order to prevent themselves from contracting the virus. These processes, on the one hand, are related to the prevention of the spread of the virus, but on the other, to confining many people in common space with potential abusers.

Correspondingly, the authors of the present study found it interesting to observe the patterns of reaction adopted by Georgia and Switzerland to face the actual challenges, whether or not the methods of fighting against women and domestic violence have changed, and what specific problems have been identified. The study serves to outline the problems, to assess the increased risks of violence and to ultimately evaluate the measures implemented to prevent the increase of violence in the two countries mentioned above. Finally, the article will evaluate and summarize the required measures and develop the recommendations that could possibly be applied in times of crisis.

The study given in the article was conducted under the Swiss international mobility project MOVETIA as well as with the support of Georgian National University SEU and Eastern Switzerland University through the involvement of their professors, experts and students. In addition to the authors of the article, professor: Ina Shanava and students: Mariam Esaiashvili, Anna Tsirekidze, Nina Malan, David Zanitti, Nikolai Laib and Kristina Paskov were involved in the research as well. The made experience showed perfectly the importance of international cooperation.

More advancement in scientific activity is necessary to reevaluate the challenges of modern world and their possible solutions. Research-based solutions can be effective for the development of numerous fields as well as for resolving issues in economic, social, cultural, or other spheres. This was demonstrated by the Covid-19 pandemic, when the vaccination was created. The vaccination as a consequence of a scientific approach led to stop the pandemic. Accordingly, it is crucial to support the growth and development of research activities and encourage scientific activities among students in universities and higher education institutions¹ where the teaching-learning process and research activities are carried out, new knowledge and experience are created. This is done in order to update and consolidate existing knowledge, as well as to create new knowledge and integrate it into the educational process and the economy.

The goal of this paper is to reveal the activities of universities and teaching universities in the field of higher education. It does this by providing an overview of international studies, a general discussion of the significance and role of scientific-research activities in the development of higher education, as well as the findings of research carried out in Georgia. The paper includes both an overview of international studies, a general discussion of the importance and role of research activities in the development of higher education, and the qualitative research results conducted in Georgia, the purpose of which is to reveal the activities of universities and educational institutions in the field of higher education.

In this process, employees of the research departments from 10 Georgian universities/teaching universities, who are presented in the study as experts in the field were interviewed (in general 15 experts). The novelty of the study consists in its description of the challenges facing Georgia’s higher education system, as well as the identification of the role that research activities play in the activities and development of universities.

The main findings of the research can be considered that the primary function and role of universities is to transfer existing knowledge to younger generations, as well as to create new knowledge. Through their research initiatives, universities play a significant role in the creation of new knowledge, which contributes to the formation of highly qualified personnel and develops various fields. Also, the issue of raising adequate funds for research and internationalization of research, which will increase the accessibility of scientific projects to local and international markets, remains an important challenge.