Sport as a social institution for constant development has always needed a constant interchange of achievements from practical experience in theory and back. An important part of the system that provided such circulation and supported the life activity of the sports sphere since 19th century was Russian sports journalism, which initially developed in general publications in the form of separate articles or sections. Further expansion of the number of sports activities, the increase of its role and importance in the life of society has required the emergence of special periodical press. Before the revolution, a unified typological group of sports publications has crystallized as part of specialized journalism, united by purpose, audience, object of reflection, integrity and structuring, general functions, among which the main ones were educational, propaganda and organizational. In postrevolutionary Russia, special attention was paid to the creation of a history of the development of sports and physical culture. The sport was elevated to the level of international politics.
In recent years, attention to sports has been reviving. The heroism of sport is displayed in new domestic feature films and talented journalistic works. In connection with the 2014 Winter Olympics in Sochi and the 2014 FIFA World Cup and a number of other international sporting events, Russia has faced the global task of creating a holistic system of physical education that covers wide circles. By the impact of convergence and expansion of multimedia, some sports editions have become unique entities combining several media channels in one, and attracting new audiences to the topic of sports. Thus, sports mass media today is visibly on the upgrade as even more interesting, professional, competitive and promising.

The term “sports journalism”, as well as other types of journalism (business journalism, political journalism, military journalism), being an offshoot of journalism, retains the basic foundations given in the definition of journalism, adding content characteristic of this species branch. Sports journalism in broad consideration includes theoretical and methodological analysis of the state of social processes relating in any way to physical culture and sports. It can hardly consider (cover, analyze) the issues of sport in isolation from physical culture.
It seems theoretically reasonable to consider sports journalism not only as a tool for describing and analyzing the sports life of an object. Sports journalism is designed not just to reflect sports events, and not even limited to the analysis of sports as an integral element of any organization, even at the social level. The performance of journalistic functions in sports journalism includes the display of social life events around the sport and the accompanying direction of physical culture. The communicative function of a sports journalist consists in actualization of sports information by enhancing communication between the source of information and the recipient through the channels of mass communication and information. Sports topics are an integral element of many informational messages of various media. It covers and reflects cultural, political, ideological, communicative and other meanings of sport. Today, no one doubts the fact that sport is an extremely capacious and multifunctional phenomenon. Therefore, modern sports journalism, embodying political, socio-cultural and ethical theories, should be based on thinking styles, aesthetic ideals and values.
In recent years, the importance of sport in Russia has increased dramatically. This is primarily due to the holding of the Olympics and the FIFA World Cup in Russia. Sport has become an active influence on social processes, it is strengthened in the minds of people as a prestigious and attractive category. Accordingly, sports journalism has begun to progress.

The goal that was set by the author consists in identification and analysis of the features of the HoReCa segment and the trends occurring in the industry and in the global market in the era of digital marketing, which largely impacts the implementation of targeted marketing decisions. To achieve this goal, the author examines the key aspects of marketing and the current state of the HoReCa market and highlights the features of the portrait of the new consumer – millennial. Particular attention is paid to the practical part of the research, based on empirical material concerning the consideration of the applied marketing approaches by one of the market representatives – the Renaissance Moscow Monarch Center hotel. The author reviews offline and online solutions in the hotel industry with the introduction of the author’s case, including an analysis of promotion of the Renaissance Moscow Monarch Center hotel.
As part of the scientific novelty in the framework of the work, HoReCa was considered in terms of the direct influence of the target audience creating new informational trends. The author draws a parallel between the needs of the millennials and the need for companies to develop more accurate marketing solutions. These findings can be considered as he basis for building a current and effective promotion plan for various market players and are significant for studying modern communication practices.

Extremely important that the communicative competence of a doctor determines the patients’ understanding of the treatment technology and the implementation of their prescriptions, which ultimately leads to compliance. This significant component of the treatment process in the form of communication “doctor-patient” will be discussed in the current article. Successful treatment of disease with prescription medicines requires consistent use of the medicines as prescribed.
Many research show that medicines commonly are not used as directed. Nonadherence to medicines is a major health care cost and quality problem, with numerous studies showing high rates of nonadherence directly related to poor clinical outcomes, high health care costs, and lost productivity. The cost of nonadherence has been estimated at $100 billion to $300 billion annually [Sweeney]. Human and economic costs associated with nonadherence can be avoided by improving the communicative competence of the doctor and patient, which, in turn, helps to provide better results and greater value from our health care system.
The authors represent the results of research of medical services consumers, and specify the criteria of communicative interaction between the doctor and the patient.

The paper represents the discussion of the territorial branding of Estonia from the point of view of the national identity and competitiveness of the country, as well as the relationship between these characteristics and the country brand. Besides, it discovers the issues related to the formation of a sustainable image of Estonia as a brand, harmoniously developing and logically constructed. The starting point of the study is the development of water tourism in Estonia, taking into account the country’s rich water resources and the increasing popularity of water tourism in Estonia and in neighboring countries. The technology of strengthening the brand of Estonia is being considered through the formation of a subbrand of the cruise service. The objective of the research can be defined as the following: based on sustainable linguistic, cultural, geographical associations with the territory as is in the texts of travel guides, advertising materials and Internet resources, (1) to describe the main characteristics of Estonia; (2) to identify key resources for promoting the territory; and (3) to develop a model for the Estonian water tourism brand, taking into account its main communication characteristics.

The influence of unfair communication practices and factors of destabilization of social relations should be verified by intellectual mechanisms of prevention. Features of system problems within the information sphere of activity do not give the chance to argue freely about benefits of development of information society. The growth of uncertainty in the behavior of communication subjects in the global information space remains. Still, the tasks of information and analytical support of state and international activities, which come to the fore in the context globalization trends, remain time-consuming.
Subjects of social relations can have a large number of mutual information and competencies, which increases the interchange of information, and vice versa. Competitive clash of competencies in the media space can be reduced to solving a creative problem. Competitive nature of competition should be directed to the knowledge of the latest competencies. The creative nature of competition contributes to the development of existing competencies. Accordingly, the organization of activities involves not just training new people, but the selection and retraining of many existing managers. It is all about the purpose and nature of professional (re)training and the process of the selection of managers to work in special modern conditions that require adjustment of existing and adaptation of newly introduced managerial competencies in terms of stabilization of social relations.

Modern Universities develop and promote their image to create a competitive advantage. The image of a particular educational institution is not just a set of formed external and meaningful indicators of its activity. It manifests itself in the impressions and beliefs of those who have an idea about this institution. In turn, the perceived positive image gives impetus to further communication of the target audience with the university. The public relations services and image-makers themselves should make sure that the image of their university is formed correctly, and the reputation characteristics of the University and its representatives are perceived adequately. To build effective communication with applicants, university should develop a technology of segmentation of target groups and relevant measurements for their characteristics and status. The obtained information should help to achieve the correct focus of efforts on each element of the communication. Management of all components of marketing mix should be carried out in a coordinated manner, based on an integrated approach to the implementation of marketing communication. The development of a marketing strategy should be preceded by a detailed analysis of the most effective sources of information about a higher educational institution with a focus on the availability and perceptibility of information to the targeted groups of applicants. Each target group should be studied in detail to better understand its needs and expectations.

The paper is dedicated to the analysis of the image of the North Caucasus Federal District, in particular, the Karachay-Cherkess Republic from the point of view of tourism and investment potential. Based on statistical data on the region and the main directions of the socio-economic development of the republic, the author reveals the content of the image of the territory and the factors influencing the formation of a positive image. The author have assessed the impact of positive civic identity on the image of the republic as a whole, the national (ethnic composition) of the republic and the birth rate. Based on the results of sociological polls conducted in the Karachay-Cherkess Republic, the author concludes that the republics of the North Caucasus have specific features: religiousness of the population, adherence to traditions, a high level of civic identity, and a positive assessment of the activities of government bodies.

The article is dedicated to the study of the difficulties and opportunities for the formation of public opinion through communication between the authorities and the population through social networks. It represents the results of the analysis and comparison of the use of social networks by federal and regional authorities on the example of the Government of St. Petersburg. The results have revealed the problem of insufficient use of modern communication technologies by the authorities. Besides, the use of social networks and blogs, allows state authorities to form an image of power open to dialogue with the public, but, according to the authors, this format of communication is not quite popular among the public. According to the authors, the main efforts in this regard should be aimed at promoting two-way communication, involving citizens in an open dialogue with the authorities.

The article is devoted to the specificity of the reflection of the Syrian military confrontation in the media of Syria, Russia and the countries of the West. To achieve this goal, the author made a selective study of the materials of 1020 publications of Russian, Syrian, Western (American, French and British) media, printed and electronic (“Kommersant”, “Vedomosti”, “Rossiyskaya Gazeta”, “Profile”, “Novaya Gazeta”, “Expert”, “Gazeta.Ru”, “Fontanka”, “RIA Novosti”, Syrian Arab Information Agency SANA, “Thawra”, “Enab Baladi”, “ Al Souria”, “Al-Watan Syria”, “Orient.net”, “The Washington Post”, CNN, FOX, “The national interest”, “Business Insider”, “Foreign Policy”, “Newsweek”, “The New Yorker”, “The American Conservative”, “Agence France-Presse”, “Le Monde”, “France Soir”, “L’Opinion”, BBC, “The Times”, “Financial Times”, “The Telegraph”, “Prospect Magazine”), published between 2010 and 2018, and selected according to context “conflict in Syria”.
The applied methods are the system-structural approach, the concrete historical method, the comparative method of studying socio-economic phenomena, and the method of content analysis. According to the results of the study, it is concluded that in this conflict each side seeks to give its own idea of what is happening, and an important information feature is an active information confrontation not only between the direct participants of the conflict, but also in the international arena. In the information war around Syria, a number of prominent world political actors are participating, while the position of the media of the US and individual allies is less objective than the position of the official Russian media, including because of the reasons for sources that do not deserve trust, anonymous messages and “fake” news. The further trajectories of the transformation of the media, primarily the Syrian, depend to a large extent on both the prospects for resolving the armed conflict and on the actual vectors of the world information war, which has an active influence on the armed conflict itself.

The paper is dedicated to the analysis of the cultural policy of the Russian state realized by its key participants: educational institutions and structures of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs. The paper reviews the available domestic standard and legal base, key provisions of the international acts and the realized target programs, including from a position of target indicators of assessment of efficiency of the carried-out measures. Besides, the authors outline the key directions of interstate cultural cooperation, the applied tools and the main mechanisms of support by the state of its participants. Special attention is paid to the analysis of policy of cultural cooperation for member countries of the Commonwealth of Independent States. The authors examine the experience of implementation of the Year of Russia project abroad for the last 12 years. On the basis of the analysis of each of the listed aspects, the authors team develops the paths of optimization of the performed activity, possible trends and potential areas of development of each of the directions of realization of cultural policy of the Russian state.

The information society is featured by an increasing interest in communication issues in general, and in particular in museum communications. The paper is dedicated to the models of museum communications (cognitive, sign, dialogue, etc.) and represents the experience of its testing as a tool for promoting historical and cultural heritage and creating to create a unique image of territory (using the example of the city of Krasnoufimsk). Besides, the author identifies the role of the local history museum in this process. The author believes that geo-branding is one of the current areas of development of the Russian hinterland, increasing the competitiveness of individual rural and urban areas, and presumes that museum communications can play an important role in this process by implementing online and offline dialog forms of interaction with the local community.