Regional Formation and Development Studies

In most cases the internet has a positive effect on its users – it offers unrestrained communication, expression of opinions and sense of openness. On the other hand, excessive usage leads to internet addiction. The most important features of the internet include rapid spread of information and news, access to tremendous amount of information, personalization and anonymity. After the literature review of theoretical research of authors from Lithuania and abroad, and application of theoretical analytical, resumptive, analogical, deductive and comparative methods, the features of XXI century media literacy were identified. A questionnaire allowed to examine the internet’s specifics and nature of users’ media literacy online. Empirical research was conducted to analyse the internet users’ behavior based on age groups as well as to identify their level of literacy. A big part of today’s daily activity and free time is related to usage of the internet media. Many services take an online form. Therefore, the issue of Lithuanian users’ online behavior becomes a concurrent to the development of welfare society, and media literacy gets to be one of the necessities for future skills. Instead of searching for and passively using the given information, internet users start to make their own, evaluate it and spread further. The users are enabled to fashion their private social networks, they become responsible for organization of the whole personal communication infrastructure. This research points out the main reasons of Lithuanian internet users not using e-services: the lack of media literacy and insufficient spread of the service-related information. The biggest difference in literacy among age groups was noticed while evaluating personal predisposition to internet addiction. Levels of literacy based on age groups were significantly different in terms of ability to critically evaluate online information.

The paper presents the corruption issue by highlighting the actual situation of corruption in the Slovak society. This problem has a historical background when after 1993 the Slovak Republic was separated from the Czech Republic. The author offers theoretical attitudes which are necessary to apply in practice for to improve situation in Slovakia. Theoretical information was gained from relevant sources. The author tries to apply official results from Transparency International and other institutes. The media has great effect on public opinion and therefore investigative journalism should be developed which could uncover media property and corruption in the whole society. Journalism should be independent of politicians. It should be objective, full of truthful information with verifiable sources. In the last part of the paper some solutions are suggested which should be applied in practise as they can help to address corruption solutions. In other words, necessary measures may support the healthy environment with social welfare and spur development of the society.

The article is devoted to the study of socio-cultural environment of the student youth as a reference group of professional socialization. According to the collected theoretical and practical material, the development components, trends and standards are reviewed. The research results show that the process of unsuccessful professional socialization and adaptation, which may result in a process of social exclusion, also deserves careful research attention. The obstacles of successful professional socialization are mentioned, such as a sharp increase in social differentiation and changes in the structure of public relations, which act as factors – demotivators of the process of professional socialization. It is emphasized that the main determinant of stabilization should act as handling social conflicts (misunderstandings), which is inevitable. It is noted that the initial professional socialization within the university as a social institution can be seen as a means of reducing social conflicts, because in the professional socialization and proper labor standards and values, the greatest achievement of combining norms and values is held.

Occurrence of the agent paradigm and its further applications have stimulated the emergence of new concepts and methodologies in computer science. Today terms like multi-agent system, agent-oriented methodology, and agent-oriented programming (AOP) are widely used. The aim of this paper is to clarify the validity of usage of the terms AOP and AOP language. This is disclosed in two phases of an analysis process. Determining to which concepts, terms like agent, programming, object-oriented analysis and design, object-oriented programming, and agent-oriented analysis and design correspond is accomplished in the first phase. Analysis of several known agent system engineering methodologies in terms of key concepts used, final resulting artifacts, and their relationship with known programming paradigms and modern tools for agent system development is performed in the second phase. The research shows that in the final phase of agent system design and in the coding stage, the main artifact is an object, defined according to the rules of the object-oriented paradigm. Hence, we conclude that the computing society still does not have AOP owing to the lack of an AOP language. Thus, the term AOP is very often incorrectly assigned to agent system development frameworks that in all cases, transform agents into objects.